


The Practical Consequences of Grinding in Hooves Trilogy

by chillafterdark



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:48:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillafterdark/pseuds/chillafterdark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Will and Chris hook up for the first time (I imagine this being quite early on, and not like a big deal, maybe after a few drinks?), and cue curious/embarrassing/teasing friends the day after. Plus some personal headcanon stuff after reading the tag. 7,300+ words. Enjoy! :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In September, Ashley gives him a heads up.  
  
“A little birdie told me Will and his man are on the rocks,” Ashley whispers as she presses a cold drink to his palm. Chris glances over and Will does seem to be a bit closed off, guarded. His smile’s not reaching his eyes. “Get ready, tiger,” Ashley adds with a smirk and an exaggerated wink, and Chris just shakes his head, filing away the info.  
  
In October, it actually happens.   
  
“ _Splitsville_ ,” Ashley mouths over Will’s head a few weeks before Halloween when he walks into his kitchen to find them gathering pumpkin carving supplies. Chris’s eyebrows jump to his hairline and he schools his face into a smile when Will turns back around, smacking Ashley hard once they’re alone together for springing it on him like that.   
  
“When?” he asks quietly, holding her back as they watch everyone else gathered around his table from just behind the doorway. She tilts her head backwards towards the kitchen, hair falling in her face to hide their gossip, and replies, “Few weeks back. Told ya so. Let me know if you need a wingman, buddy.” She shoves at his shoulder and leaves him to join the others, the wheels already turning in his head.   
  
In November, he plans to pounce.  
  
*  
  
It doesn’t work out that way. Mostly because the more Chris looks at his November schedule, the crazier it gets, and frankly, he’s tired of waiting. Patience was never a virtue he treasured dearly. He makes a few changes to his Llamanator costume, and really, October 28th is _close enough_.   
  
He doesn’t miss Ashley’s smirk when he lets her in with her overnight bag. His house is the largest, so the handful of friends they’re going out with tonight are crashing at his place (though he won’t be surprised if some of their other friends end up ditching them along the way and don’t make it back). “Subtle,” she says, snapping a finger under the arm of his bodysuit as her grapes bob and sway. “Your previous t-shirt was covering up too much of the goods?”   
  
Chris just smirks back and prods her with his hooves towards the bedroom she and Will are supposed to be occupying later. Though if he gets his way, she’ll be sleeping alone.   
  
Will’s the last to arrive, dressed as the Phantom of the Opera, and Chris feels a little surge of pride when he notices how Will’s eyes roam over him, how his throat rises and falls as he swallows thickly. Will’s been hanging out a lot more with him and Ashley since the breakup, because they didn’t really know his ex, and Chris has no complaints. “I thought this was the crowd that didn’t do sexy costumes,” Will says as he reaches Chris’s side after greeting everyone else.  
  
“I can’t help it if I’m inherently sexy,” Chris throws back, meeting his gaze and holding it a touch longer than he should. Will smiles as if he can’t figure out how to respond to that, what to even do with Chris. “Here, let me take your bag,” Chris says, filling the emptiness. He mainly takes it so Will can watch him walk down the hallway - because, there’s no question. He’s watching.   
  
He finds six people doing shots of vodka around his table when he returns, and he can’t even chide them for raiding his liquor cabinet because it’s Will who has two glasses in his hand. “Bottoms up,” he says, winking as their pinkies brush underneath Chris’s ridiculous finger pieces.   
  
Chris winces as he sets the empty glass down on his table, the burn hitting his throat as the liquid slides down, watching Will’s throat as he swallows, the bob of his Adam’s apple, and they need to go. “Enough pregaming, you all are going to drink me out of house and home,” he declares, walking out the front door and leaving Ashley to lock up since she’s bringing a purse and his costume doesn’t really leave room for keys in pockets.   
  
Chris climbs in the backseat of their hired car, and Ashley pretends to check something on her phone so Will climbs in before her. “ _Subtle_ ,” Chris mouths behind Will’s back once the three of them are situated, and Ashley just shrugs her shoulders and acts like she hasn’t a clue what he means.   
  
“So,” Will starts softly as the car lurches into motion, turning in close to Chris, because the backseat is cramped with the three of them. Their arms are bouncing into each other each time the driver takes a turn trying to get out of Chris’s neighborhood, and Chris can smell Will’s cologne and  _fuck_ , he smells good. “I don’t think I ever got the full explanation as to what your costume is.” He reaches up and touches the fur on the ears of the headpiece, grinning.   
  
Chris returns the smile, mostly because Will’s tone is … almost flirty. Yeah, he’s got this. “Well, you see, I’m a llama. Who’s also an assassin.  _The Llamanator_.” He tries not to laugh when he says it, because Will is hanging on his every word and still petting his ears.   
  
“Do you kill other llamas then? Wow, I’m really glad I ditched that costume idea.” Will drops his arm to the back of the bench seat, his hand resting just above Chris’s shoulder, and as they jostle, fingers meet skin. “Ashley says your costumes are always so creative. Mine never are, as you can see.”  
  
“I have another good one for Wednesday. You’ll have to come with us to see it though. I _never_  talk about costumes before I wear them.” Ashley meets his eye then, and she’s about to butt in on their conversation. He tries to tell her telepathically to go back to her own conversation with their other friends in the row ahead, but she doesn’t get the memo.   
  
“He really doesn’t. He only started telling me because one year he needed help with something, something with the sea monkey one, yeah? So now I’m his Halloween confidante. And even then, he’ll throw a curveball into it, like today -”  
  
“Ashley!” Chris just glares at her as she smiles innocently at him. “So, anyway, like I was saying, you should come.”  
  
Will laughs, realizing he missed something but not caring to figure it out. “I have to work Wednesday and Thursday. I wasn’t sure if I was going to go out again. I don’t have another costume.”  
  
“I have to work too, come on. Just wear what you’re wearing now. Ashley and I are the only ones who’ll know. Ashley is going to meet me and whoever I can drag with me after work and I’ll be sorely disappointed if she comes alone.”   
  
Will stares at him for a good long while before ducking his head and laughing again. “Fine! You twisted my arm. Who knows, maybe I’ll come up with a better costume in the next few days.”  
  
When they file out of the car at their destination, Ashley hangs back. “Confident enough you’re setting up round two?”  
  
“Hardly,” Chris scoffs. “I win either way. If nothing happens tonight, I get a second chance. If something does happen, I’ve already dealt with the whole awkward ‘when will I see you again’ bullshit. We don’t have to dance around it or avoid each other.”  
  
“Damn, Colfer.  _Calculated._ ” Chris does think it’s one of his finer moments. He offers her his arm as they follow their friends into the club.  
  
*  
  
They’ve been out a few hours, and everything in the club is a touch too dark and too loud for Chris’s liking, but he has a steady flow of drinks, so it really could be worse. He’s walking back from the bar with Ashley when he sees Will sitting at the table they’ve claimed alone and he whispers to her, “ _I’m going in_.” He’s so focused he barely hears her whooping in the background.   
  
He sits down next to Will, startling him by the way he jumps slightly. “The Llamanator is pretty awesome at stealth, I would have been dead just now,” Will says, rolling his glass in his hand as he grins, open and wide.   
  
“It’s a good thing you are not a fellow llama then. Having fun?” Will nods and Chris sips from his own glass. Will looks like he’s about to say something, but Chris is kind of still  _over the whole waiting thing_  and cuts him off a little. “We should dance,” he blurts out, because his filter left two drinks ago. At the smile curling again at the corners of Will’s mouth, he amends his statement. “I mean, do you want to dance?”  
  
“Yeah?  _Yeah_ ,” Will replies just as fast, and just like that, Chris leads him to the throngs of people, hand in his. The bass is thumping and it’s crowded and no one pays them any attention as they carve out enough space for themselves. Chris’s head is spinning from the music and the heat of the people surrounding him and the overwhelming adrenaline rush of what’s about to happen, because it feels like he’s been waiting  _so long_. Waiting patiently for the right time, for the right place, before saying  _fuck it_  and throwing caution to the wind.   
  
They start out close, but not touching, inching closer and closer for a good thirty seconds of Ke$ha’s latest hit before Chris reaches out just above Will’s waist, grappling at his torso, and ends up poking him with the hooves he’s got slipped over his fingers. He throws his head back and bursts out laughing.   
  
“Sorry, I obviously didn’t think my costume through very well.” Will laughs along with him, bringing a hand up to his bicep and gripping tightly, his fingers curling around the muscle underneath.   
  
“I don’t know about that,” Will says, and  _oh_ , if he really knew. “Most of the non-hoof parts accentuate things pretty well.”   
  
“Well, you’ll just have to hang on extra tight for the both of us.” Chris tugs at Will’s cape as he grinds up and against his thigh, the grasp on Chris’s arm becomes firmer, and he hears Will swear under his breath, just barely. They get lost in it for a bit, one song, two songs, three, their dancing and grinding getting dirtier each time the music fades into a new song. Chris really regrets the hooves decision because all he wants to do is run hands down the planes of Will’s back, under his cape but over his shirt, anchoring his hands at the small of Will’s back as he rides his thigh.   
  
They practically are riding each other’s thighs now, and as the music switches over to old school Britney, Chris hitches his hips higher, which presses both his thigh and his dick against Will at the same time. Will’s hand that isn’t on Chris’s bicep is casually resting at his waist just above his belt, but after that, his hand roams down to Chris’s ass, holding him firmly in place as they continue moving their hips in time with the music, rocking against one another. They don’t talk, but they keep catching each other’s eye in the flickering strobe lights, and Will’s gaze is  _sinful_.   
  
“ _Chris_ ,” Will sighs as he nuzzles into his neck, damp with sweat, and god, he wants Will to lick him clean. Will pulls back, gaze diverting from his eyes to his lips, and Will licks his own before repeating his name.   
  
As much as it pains him to say it. “Not here,” he murmurs, and Will bilnks, coming back to reality a bit.   
  
“Oh. Oh right, I don’t know what I was -”  
  
“I want you to know I want to,” Chris says quickly. He reaches for Will’s hand on his bicep. Their faces are what would be clear enough to cause any trouble, anything below the belt is going to be too grainy and dark to do any damage in this crowd. He covers the back of Will’s hand with his, linking their fingers, and guides it down his body to his cock, which is almost fully hard by now, and squeezes. “ _I want_ ,” he whispers directly into Will’s ear, continuing to rub Will’s palm against him for a few more strokes before dropping his hand.  
  
“ _Fuck_.” Will buries his head against Chris’s neck again, and okay, that was probably a little unfair. He listens as Will breathes against his neck, unsteady and ragged, his lips passing over sweat-damp skin as he tries to compose himself. “It would be horrible if we left right now, right?” he asks softly against the curve of Chris’s neck. “We’d be awful friends?”  
  
Chris laughs and pulls his phone out of his back pocket to check the time. “It’s after twelve-thirty. Ash will leave with us whenever, she’ll just tease us mercilessly. But she was going to do that regardless, honestly. Everyone else probably won’t want to leave for at least two hours, but there was a chance they weren’t coming back with us.”  
  
“Split the difference? Dance a little bit longer, have a few more drinks, leave at one-thirty? I do like dancing with you, you know.” Will’s grin is so big, Chris has to resist the urge to call him on it.  
  
“Hooves and all?” Chris pokes him in the chest for emphasis before slipping his phone back in his back pocket.   
  
“Fuck yes, hooves and all. When else am I going to get a chance to dance with a Llamanator? Especially since you’re not lame enough to repeat costumes like someone else around here.”   
  
Will’s hands slide down his arms, and his grin is wicked, and maybe, just maybe, Chris isn’t so quick to get out of there after all.  
  
*  
  
The car isn’t quiet, nothing is ever quiet when Chris and Ashley are together, and it’s not like Will is a shrinking violet, either. What it is, though, is a little ridiculous. Fink is pretending that she knows nothing, and Chris would be more grateful for a best friend who knows how to do this if he could stop thinking about how this was gonna go. When they’d left Will had been busy on his phone, staying a few steps back, but from the moment they slid into the car he’d kept one hand on Chris’s thigh, running his fingers higher.   
  
But Ashley still hasn’t said anything, not directly, anyway, and Chris is leaning forward to try to talk to her; it’s rude to ignore your best friend just because you’re finally going to get the guy you want into bed, even when she’s spent the last few months aiding and abetting.   
  
It’s not until they get into the house and they’ve shut the door behind them - which had been a production itself, between hooves and grapes and a giant fuck-off cape - that Ashley pats both of their cheeks, one in each hand, and says, “Okay, boys. I’m taking myself off to bed. Are we expecting other people back tonight?” Her lips are pursed, one brow up, while she looks back and forth between them.  
  
Will looks down and grins, and his accent seems thicker when he’s maybe a little embarrassed. “I sent a text, told them we might head to bed early. I’m feeling pretty knocked out.”  
  
She grins back at them. “Okay then. I guess we’re all set. I’m going up,” and then she pauses and looks at Will.  
  
He grins at Chris and then kisses her cheek. “I’m gonna get a glass of water. I’ll be up later.”  
  
And she tosses back her head in a laugh. “Oh, honey. Of course you will.” She pats their cheeks again, this time ending it with a gentle pinch. “Okay. Night, y’all.”  
  
When she’s gone Chris looks over at Will, who’s just smiling at him. “Water?”  
  
Will nods, easy and slow, and then crosses to where he knows Chris keeps the glasses and pours two glasses of water while Chris de-llamas himself onto the table - brass knuckles, headpiece, the things strapped around his legs that Brian is rubbing himself up against. He takes a moment to rub Brian behind the ears while he’s crouched down saying hello. When he looks up and back over at Will he’s thrown his mask and cloak over the counter and is watching him while he sips at a glass of water, and Chris pats Brian again and stands, waving at the pile that’s left of his costume.  
  
“The hooves.”  
  
Will tips his glass. “It was an inspired touch.”  
  
“It was something of a pain in the ass. Also my legs.”  
  
Will just stands there, leaning against the kitchen cabinets, though, grinning at him. The moment stretches, and suddenly Chris feels like there’s no rush. He’s been waiting for this - waiting for Will to be single, waiting for the moment to come, waiting for him to just be over the ex - and just for right now, he wants to stand there and look at Will across his kitchen, comfortable and watching him back. It’s a good moment, and he’s getting better about appreciating them when they happen instead of after they’re over.  
  
Suddenly Will says, “You decided yet?”  
  
And after what happened at the party, it’s not like he feels like he needs to pretend he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And maybe it’s time to show his hand, just a peek, just this once. Will is his friend, after all, and this doesn’t have to be a big deal but the whole point of waiting is that Chris thought that it could be. That maybe he wants it to be.  “Oh, _William_. I already told you - I decided a while ago.”  
  
Will’s head tilts back and to the side. “Really.”  
  
“Yep. Just… waiting.”  
  
“You done waiting now?”  
  
Chris leans back, resting his butt on the table and mirroring Will’s posture. “You done needing me to?”  
  
Will laughs, shakes his head, and pushes away from the counter from the hips, and he’s not tall - he’s not slinky, either. But he comes around the island between them, which is really all that Chris needs, because he’ll meet him there.  
  
He thinks he might say something else when he gets there, something witty and a little cutting, but when he closes in on him Will wraps his hands back around Chris’s arms, just like on the dance floor, and pulls him close.  
  
He kisses him once, mouth cool from the water and pulling soft and sweet, and then he pulls back to look at him. His smile is sweet, too, when he slides his nose against Chris’s and says, “okay?”  
  
And that’s enough. Chris gets his hands on his hips, pulling him in closer, and this time the kiss is fierce, hungry, because enough, and he’s waited all night to taste him. Longer, really - they’ve been in the same big, unbounded group of friends for a long time, and he’s always liked him, thought he was fun, smart. But now for the last few months it’s been more, something more, and now he’s going to take it.   
  
Will kisses like Chris thought he might, a mix of sweet and dirty, and his tongue slides slick and wet and oh, god, his hands are tight on Chris’s shoulders. Chris turns them just a little so he can push Will against the island, slides his hand down to grasp at his ass and pull him close, too. He feels hard, firm, and it’s just like back on the dance floor but better, because Will makes a little noise in the back of his throat when he slides his hands into the back of Chris’s hair, turning his head so he can make the kiss deep, wet, his tongue sliding against Chris’s while Chris fucks into him with his tongue, his hips. He tilts his head a little more, and his cheekbone nudges up against the mask that Chris was wearing, which startles him enough to pull back and laugh a little.  
  
Will’s fingers are gentle, skating light around the edge of the mask and then down his nose with a grin. “You gonna leave this on?”  
  
“I forgot about it. What do you think - wanna fuck a ninja?” Chris ducks his head to lick along the cords of Will’s neck where he tastes like sweat and gin.  
  
Will laughs low in his throat and says, “I think I want to fuck  _you_. C’mon, let’s get it off of you.” He takes Chris’s hand to tug him to the bathroom. “But I think we should leave the eyeliner,” he adds, and that sounds like a promise.  
  
*  
  
Brian has been dropped off just outside Ashley’s room and left to make his way in, and now the mask is gone, tossed on his bathroom counter for him to decide tomorrow what he wants to do with it. Will has swiped mineral oil across his cheekbones with careful, quick strokes and pressed a warm, wet cloth against his skin. It’s so easy, grinning and laughing and Chris can’t stop teasing him about going out with nothing but fake blood to cover him up. “So what you’re saying is that you got home and took the shower of the damned.”  
  
"It was grisly, yeah, but hey – it’s not that often that a man can strip down, cover himself in fake blood, and wander around mostly naked with a chainsaw."  
  
"How often I’ve regretted that," Chris quips, while Will chases droplets of water across his cheekbones with his bare fingers. His hands are warm, damp, and his smile is cheeky.  
  
"We’re in LA now. Might as well live the dream." He pauses for a moment, starting right at Chris. “You have really pretty eyes, you know that? Kind of amazing with that eyeliner." Will rubs one thumb just under his left one.  
  
"Did you go home with somebody?" He knows he shouldn’t ask, he knows it’s against the rules, but right now Will is just… sweet. Comfortable.  
  
Will nods, short and quick. “I did. Well. I had sex, anyway."  
  
The smile this time is dirty, because Chris wants it to be, and all that time spent staring at his face in the mirror has paid off. “Tell me about him."  
  
Will’s face in return is priceless, the very picture of ‘appalled’. “I don’t think so!"  
  
"Why not?" Chris says, turning his head to look over Will’s shoulder into the mirror behind him.  
  
"You want a threesome already? I thought you were waiting for me." Chris can’t look at him, not right now, but Will puts the side of his hand under his chin and tips it until their eyes meet. “Hey. It’s a big age difference. We’ve known each other for a while."  
  
Chris can  _hear_  the hesitation in that, so he rushes to say, “I’m not as young as my drivers’ license says I am. You  _know_  that. Hell, you’ve  _said_  that." He had – a year ago they’d been passing a vaporizer on a Sunday afternoon and a friend of a friend had made a joke when it went to Chris, but Will had just given the guy a look of utter disdain and said, “He earned the house you’re sitting in. I think he gets to decide if he wants to do this," and passed it over.  
  
"And I’m not as fucked up as you think I am." Will puts the washcloth back on the counter and leans back, pulling Chris forward by his hands to stand between his legs. “Okay. Cards on the table, because we’re friends and I don’t want to fuck that up. I’m not quite ready for another relationship. I just got out of one, but I got into that one because I wanted one, badly."  
  
Chris meets his eyes, holds them. “I’m not looking for that."  
  
"Now  _that_  is a big lie, but that’s okay. I get it. But I will tell you this." Will runs his fingers up from his elbows to his shoulders, lingering over the swell of Chris’s biceps. “You’ve grown up a lot in the last year. And I  _definitely_  noticed." His fingers move to the v of Chris’s top, where the top few snaps are undone, and they slide into the space. The next snap down goes, and then the one after, and Will keeps moving his fingers over that skin. His voice is quieter when he says, “You are a force to be reckoned with, Chris Colfer, and I really want to take your clothes off now. Can we start there?"  
  
The snaps go, one by one, until Chris is mostly bare from the waist up, and Will leans forward to put his mouth against his chest.  His tongue traces across his chest, along a curve of muscle that was hard-won, and teases at his nipple.  Chris’s hand flies up all on its own to grab at Will’s mouth, push it hard against him, and he can feel Will’s mouth stretch into a wide grin.  
  
"I want to fuck you," Chris says while Will flicks his tongue a little harder. “Your ass… fuck, your ass is amazing. You would not  _believe_  how badly I want at it."  Chris watches them in the mirror, watches his own face grow flushed while he tells Will the truth, at least part of it.  
  
Will shoves him back just a step or two and says, “Let’s see what we’re working with, then." And then he drops to his knees, there on the bathroom rug, and Chris can’t stand to look at himself any more, not when Will is right  _there_.  
  
Will looks back up at him. “Yeah.  _Really_  pretty eyes," he says. “Keep watching me. I like it when you’re watching me," and so Chris leaves his hands in Will’s hair, runs his fingers through it, sweaty and a little spiky, while Will goes for this belt.  
  
When Chris’s jeans are open, Will pauses, looks down and then groans. “Oh sweet merciful hell, what is  _this_?"  
  
It startles a laugh out of Chris. “It’s a bodysuit. It had the whole sexy llama assassin vibe I was going for."  
  
Will runs his fingers along the seaming, tracing the edge of the little basket it makes. Chris isn’t completely hard yet, but when Will looks up at him with heat in his eyes, his dick jumps one step closer.  
  
"Take your pants off. I want to see you in this," and he tugs at the waistband.  
  
Chris backs up a step, shucking them off and kicking them to the corner, and then steps back close. Will goes at him face first, rubbing his nose against Chris’s crotch before his hands come up to cup around the back of his knees and slide up his thighs until they’re just cradling his ass. “Holy  _shit_ , Chris," he breathes, rubbing his cheek along Chris’s package. And it’s just as glorious as he had imagined, that look in Will’s eyes when he looks up, and Chris has to get his hands back in his hair.  
  
"It unsnaps all the way down," he offers.  
  
"I noticed," is all Will says, but he just keeps rubbing his face there until he turns to breathe hot against the fabric, licking and sucking at Chris’s cock through black cotton. “Oh my god," he sighs out, and then his hands slip around Chris’s waist to tug at the snaps again. This time they give all the way down, except for one or two around the bottom, and Will carefully undoes them one-by-one and pushes the material down to cradle Chris’s balls. His dick falls out when the snaps fly open, and then the fabric is gone. Will makes a noise low in his throat and leans back in to take his cock into his mouth.  
  
He can’t help it – he moans when he does. Will looks up at him then, eyes bright and mischievous, and Chris cradles his face in his hands, one palm along each cheek. He doesn’t need to drive, not yet, not when Will is already giving him everything he needs. His mouth is warm, wet, and fuck he sucks cock beautifully, like he wants it, like he wants Chris’s dick in his mouth.  
  
"Fuck, Will – oh. Yeah. That – " and it’s bad etiquette, but he does it anyway – he pumps his hips forward, just once.  
  
Will pulls off with a pop. “Fuck, you have a beautiful dick." He licks up the side, bends his neck to lick gently at Chris’s balls until Chris tightens his fist in his hair again and then he sucks one into his mouth. Warm, wet,  _warm_ , and Will’s still watching him when he licks his way back up to suck at the crown, lick into his slit. “Beautiful. Yeah, I want you to fuck me."  
  
Chris groans, watches him. “Let’s go to the bed, then. I don’t keep condoms in the bathroom."  
  
Will’s eyes soften. “Not tonight, Chris. You’re not gonna fuck me tonight." He sucks Chris’s cock into his mouth one more time, groaning as he goes down slow, his lips stretched tight and his eyes rolling shut before he pulls back, does it once more, twice, and then pulls off, licking and slurping at the head as he goes. Chris moans when he stops, the air cool against his dick, and then Will says, “But there’s always tomorrow. Next week. I’m pretty sure this is going to happen again, if you want it to, because fuck, you are worth taking some time with."  
  
Chris pulls him up by his arms, ready to steer him into the bedroom, but Will comes on his own and grabs at him, pulls him into a kiss and slips his thigh between Chris’s. Will’s dick is hard, pressing against his own, and Chris grunts into it, slamming his hips forward.  _Fuck_.  
  
He wrenches his mouth away, and Will just works down his neck, sucking gently just below his ear and oh, god. Chris manages to say, “I thought you said you weren’t ready for a relationship."  
  
Will just looks poleaxed when he says, “I did."  
  
The moment hangs between them, and Chris says, “Let’s go to bed."  
  
In the bedroom it’s another flurry of undressing – Chris shucks the bodysuit on the way, so he kneels naked on his bed and shoves Will’s shirt off of his shoulders so he can suck a hickey onto one of them. Will swears while he gets his pants and socks off, and Chris laughs against his throat, tugging him onto the bed  _hurry, hurry_  while Will groans through giggles.  
  
And then they’re just  _there_ , naked and warm and so close to each other. Will is built like he likes his men – or maybe he likes his men built like Will, it’s hard to tell, because Will has been around for a while. For now, though, all he can see is his own hand tracing over Will’s body, down his chest and abs, to a perfectly flushed dick standing straight and full. He bites at his abs, feeling the resistance of flat muscle against his teeth, and licks wet and wide up his dick. “Fuck, you are gorgeous. Wanted to get my hands on you, and look at you now."  
  
Will’s eyes are bright, shining. “Like I said – it’s good to live the dream."  
  
Chris pinches at his waist – no give, it’s fucking  _glorious_  – and says, “What do you want?"  
  
"Come here and I’ll tell you," he whispers, both hands reaching up to grab his shoulders.  
  
They crash into a kiss that’s messy, wet, open mouths, a disorganization of just two tongues, and Will curls his hand around Chris’s dick. “Come all over me," he whispers hot against his ear. “I want to tug on your dick until you get me messy."  
  
He rubs against him, the hair on their thighs scraping coarse and gorgeous while he drags his balls against Will’s, and then he sits up, straddling him, to reach over and pull a bottle from the table by his bed. Will just lies back against his pillows, his smile wide and happy, and holds his hand up. “Lube me, baby,” he says.  
  
“You are an idiot,” Chris laughs, but he does - he squeezes until Will’s palm is shiny with slick, then flips the cap closed and drops it on the bed. Before it hits the mattress Will’s hand is back around him, moving warm and fast while he stares at Chris’s dick, and Chris dives back down to get at his mouth, to bury a moan there because oh god, this is going to happen fast.   
  
He tips to his side and Will rolls with him, following his mouth and his cock and he grabs at him, finally slides his hands over that ass that he still wants to get at, squeeze in his hands, bury his face and dick in, but for now he contents himself with one brush of his fingers up the crack of his ass and then lets his fingers tangle with Will’s around his own dick, smearing slick over his own fingers so he can wrap his hand around Will’s cock. Will pulls back to watch their hands, their dicks, his eyes hooded, mouth open, lips soft and slick and spilling little moans and  _fuck fuck fuck_ s between them.   
  
And then Will looks up, catches Chris’s eye and pauses to give him a smile. “C’mere,” he murmurs, and leans forward for a kiss while Chris’s eyes drift closed so he can  _feel_.   
  
And all of a sudden it’s something different. His hand is still moving on Chris’s dick, but the kiss is slow, lush, and his hand slows to match the rhythm of their mouths, long tight pulls that have Chris matching his stroke until they’re moving together, mouths and hands, slow and strong. Chris has to move into it, has to pick up that same rhythm in his hips and fuck Will’s hand with it. He opens his eyes to look at Will, and he’s staring at him, eyes so close and wide. Chris’s breath stutters out of him and he licks out and into Will’s mouth when his hips hitch again.  
  
Will says, “oh”, quiet, and it’s a breath into Chris’s mouth while he whimpers and keeps fucking into his hand, his eyes drifting shut. Will’s mouth stays there, right there, wet and warm and half shared breath and the slide of tongues, and all it takes is a few more times rocking his hips and he can feel it start to gather, his balls tucking up because, oh god. He opens his eyes, watches Will throw his head back and gasp for air, eyes closed tight, and then Chris comes in his fist, feels his toes curl and his legs spasm and hears himself cry out.   
  
Will comes just after he does, and he misses it because his eyes are closed and all he can do now is breathe, smell spunk thick in the air over sweat and the barest trace of Will’s cologne. There’s a sloppy kiss, sweet and lazy, and then they’re both turning onto their backs, just to breathe. The afterglow settles, warm and lazy, and Chris runs a hand over his face to hide his smile.  
  
A few seconds later Will rolls back toward him, a breathless laugh bubbling out. “Wow. Okay. Holy shit, Chris.”  
  
He turns just his head to look at him and hums out a satisfied breath. “Mhm.”  
  
“Oh,” Will sighs out on a stretch. “We are doing that again.”  
  
And Chris gives it up, lets the grin go wide and looks back at him. “I’m glad to hear it.”  
  
The smile must be okay, though, because Will just grumbles, “Oh fuck off,” and he leans down for another sweet kiss.  
  
*  
  
When he wakes up it’s just because the sun is rising - everybody who was going out last night had cleared the morning, so it’s just warm and easy and lazy to drift awake.   
  
They’ve shifted in the night - they’d fallen asleep to lazy kisses, and the last thing Chris remembers saying is, “No, stay here. It’s good.” And now Will is sprawled next to him, face smashed into a pillow but just beginning to stir. He can see the mark he left on his right shoulder, and he can’t help smiling.  
  
And right now it’s not even a question - if he wants to avoid awkward conversations, well, he knows how to do that. He slides over, kisses the back of Will’s neck and runs one hand over his bare back, pushing the sheet down as he goes. Will’s ass is pert, sweet, and he presses kisses down the line of his spine while one hand slides over it, just… touching. He hadn’t spent enough time here yet, and there is no part of him that wants to let him out of bed.  
  
“Mmmm,” Will hums into the pillow, and Chris buries his grin in his hair. “Good morning to you, too.”  
  
“So far, so good,” he says, and then Will turns, face creased from the pillow, and smiles into a kiss.   
  
They lie there, trading lazy kisses, until the pipes start to clink.   
  
“Ashley’s up,” Will whispers, running one hand down over Chris’s shoulder.  
  
“Yeah,” and goddamn it, of course she is. “We should….”   
  
“Yeah. Okay.” Will pulls back, scrubs at his face, and then drops his hands to level a long look at him, his eyes soft. “Hey. You okay?”  
  
Chris watches him for a second, looks at his honest face, and says, “Yeah. I am. I’m good.”  
  
*  
  
They don’t shower together, but that doesn’t mean they avoid each other once they’re out of bed. Chris showers quickly and Will hovers in the bathroom, not shy about watching through the fogged up glass door as he brushes his teeth at the sink with a new toothbrush Chris procured from underneath it. Chris leaves the water running for him, telling him to hang tight as he goes in search of his belongings.    
  
He hears Ashley already in the kitchen, coffee pot that he has just to be hospitable already running and pots and pans clanging and she’s making a racket on purpose, isn’t she?  _Bitch_. If they hadn’t heard her shower, they’d be up for sure now. Brian is meowing, probably circling at her feet; she’s purposefully not feeding him.   
  
He pads down the hall to the guest room, snagging Will’s overnight bag and leaving it outside the bathroom door. He takes a chance to look himself, hard lines of muscle even less visible now that the glass is even more steamed up than before, and he finally when he’s had his fill, he calls out, “Off to face the firing squad. Take your time.”  
  
“Good morning, sunshine!” Ashley calls out brightly as Chris opens the refrigerator door and pulls out a Diet Coke. He contemplates a glass and ice, but he’d have to cross her, and opts instead for wiping the can off with the hem of his shirt. “How did you sleep? Or really, what am I saying, I’m sure there wasn’t much sleeping at all.” She’s flipping eggs at the stove and just looks so damn pleased with herself for some reason, like she’s infinitely thrilled she gets to witness this moment.   
  
Chris cracks open the can and gets in two long sips before speaking, leaning up against the island. “There would have been more sleeping if you hadn’t decided to lure us from the room with all of your racket.” Brian moves to whine at Chris and he gives in, setting the Diet Coke on the island and feeding the cat to shut him up.  
  
“Oh come on,” she says, pouting exquisitely at him. “I am making you both post-hookup breakfast. I am the most badass wingman ever. You got laid and you also get eggs and toast and all you have to do is put up with my bullshit bright and early in the morning.”  
  
He keeps quiet as she continues about cooking the eggs, finally reaching for three plates. Ashley does more cooking in his kitchen than he does; it’s not surprising to him at all that she’s taken over. “You’re quiet, boo. Did it -” she pauses her whispering to mock-gasp, hand covering her mouth as she sets a plate down next to him on the island, “- not live up to expectations?”  
  
“Oh no, it did,” Chris replies quickly, his eyes darting back and forth between Ashley and the hallway. “Just - tease me all the fuck you want, and I know he can handle his own, but I would prefer it if we didn’t scare him off just yet, understand?” He picks up a piece of toast and she joins him at the island, their plates surrounded by the remnants of the costumes, llama and Phantom parts littering the surface.   
  
Ashley munches thoughtfully for a few moments, and then gasps for real. “Oh no, you fuckers aren’t done with whatever you’re doing yet. I thought you’d just screw like bunnies and get it out of your system  _and then we’d move on with our lives_ , and now I have to worry about becoming the goddamn third wheel? At least I was left rights to the cat.”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Chris whispers sharply, peering around the corner again, because the last thing he wants is for Will to walk in on their gossip. “You’ll never be my third wheel, crazy, even if you do cut things short in the mornings. It’s not over, but it’s not like we’re getting serious either, so calm down.”  
  
Ashley opens her mouth to respond, but shuts it promptly when they hear movement in the hallway. “Darling William, how was your stay at Chez Colfer?” she drawls in her best Southern accent, her Texan twang coming out once he appears in the kitchen. “I didn’t mean to kick you out of bed but I’m sure you found suitable accommodations.”  
  
“They were mighty fine, I do declare,” he throws back at her, his own accent showing, and he breezes past them towards the coffee pot where Ashley thankfully left a mug out for him. His hair is damp and water-spiked, and if Ashley wasn’t here, Chris would feel inclined to scratch the back of his neck. Will carves out a spot for himself at the island, piling their costume leftovers in the center after he thanks Ashley for cooking breakfast. As he eats his own toast, he picks up one of the knuckle finger pieces and runs it down Chris’s arm playfully, causing the hairs to stand on end.  
  
“No hints for the next costume, huh? It’ll be hard to top this one.” Ashley pretends to zip her lips shut, taking her empty plate to the sink.   
  
“It has … props,” Chris offers, grinning, knowing there’s no way he’ll guess. “It’s a good thing you’re coming along, though if I had to guess, I’d bet you’ll prefer this one.”   
  
“Mmmm.” Will grins into his coffee mug, his grin turning mischievous as he says, “Llama sex assassin. Nothing can top that.” He takes another sip of coffee, stares down into the cup. “It was a good night.”  
  
Chris looks at him long and hard, and Will’s eyes are crinkling and warm, his shoulders soft. The moment stretches out, and Ashley says, “Okay,” and tips the frying pan into the sink.  “I see,  _this_  is how it’s gonna be,” she mutters to herself, depositing the dirty dishes in the sink for clean up, and Chris watches Will drink coffee and takes a sip from his Diet Coke and thinks to himself yeah, maybe it is.

 


	2. The Hidden Caches of a Strong Jawline

Between one thing and another, Halloween ends up not happening. 

It’s a busy day of filming, Will sends his regrets via text, and then Ashley shows up and Chris is being dragged out with a whole Glee contingent to a party. There’s more texting, back and forth all night of “where are you now,” but by 12:30 everybody is  _tired_  - it’s Halloween, but it’s also just another Wednesday night, and November is going to be a scheduling nightmare. By the time he’s buckled into Ashley’s car and they’re pulling into traffic, he’s not really all that disappointed - there’s too much to do, too much to occupy his head, to be that worried over one missed connection. He’s had too much quiet time, maybe - it’s time to get back to work.

After they drop Chord off, Ashley says, “you’re quiet.” Just like that. He waits for the next part, the joke, and instead it’s just the radio turned down low.

 He runs his fingers through his hair and says, “I’m just tired. I think I had too much to drink, and I still have a lot to do this week.”

And the horrible thing is that it isn’t even a lie.

—-

The week is just as bad as he thought it might be - they’re shoving more filming time in before they leave for New York, and the nights are long. Saturday evening he sits on set and stares at his phone, at the notifications and photos scrolling in, and sends Will his regrets and wishes for a good birthday party and avoidance of being eaten by dinosaurs. Ten minutes later he gets another text - Will sending a photo of himself in a crown covered with dinosaurs and a silly, ferocious face, saying “Wish you were here! We could get eaten together!” and he just smirks as he puts the phone down.

And then Sunday morning he has a photo shoot at 10 am, which is  _ridiculous_  but they got the studio time, so sure, why not. His phone lights up while he’s busy, over and over, and during the set up of yet another shot he scrolls through, reads pleas and jokes and looks at photos of Ashley’s smiling face and a table full of mimosas.

By the time he shows up for brunch, mimosas have turned into margaritas, and the table is still full. Everybody else seems lazy, draped over the table and the backs of chairs, but Cam is telling a story that involves flatware and 3 tortilla chips as props, and Brian is leaning back against Ashley, watching Cam with one judgmental eyebrow raised. Will looks up from his phone and sees him first, and honey slow a smile spreads across his face. He can’t help it - he smiles back.

By the time he makes it to the table, everybody’s standing up, shifting a little to make a space for him as he waves and hugs, kissing his hellos. He ends up at the end next to Will, close enough at the crowded table that their knees are pressing together, and Will slides a margarita toward him. “I’m done here - help me out.”

The glass is sweaty, but the drink is more than half full and still cold, which is good because it’s close quarters and he’s wearing the jacket he tossed on over his t-shirt on the way out of the house. When he finishes his sip and turns toward Will to raise the glass in thanks, Will is staring at him, a fond smile on his face.

“What?”

“Just - here.” And he reaches out to drag his thumb down his neck, just behind the curve of his jaw, right under his ear. “Missed a spot, I think,” and yeah, when Will holds up his thumb it’s much more evenly tan than it should be.

Chris rolls his eyes, shakes his head. “Under the jawline.  _Always_ ,”  he says, and wow, could this get any more banal.

“That’s what happens when you have a strong jawline,” Will teases, wiping his thumb against the sweaty glass and then scrubbing it against his napkin. “Too many places for things to hide.” And when he looks back up, his eyes are playful, grinning. Okay, then.

 “You never know what you’re going to find back there. The holy grail.”

“The gnawed bones of your enemies.”

“Al Capone’s fortune.”

“Tom Cruise’s lust for the ladies,” and Will’s mouth twists into a smirk when he says it, so that Chris snorts and grins back. 

“Oh, some things will  _never_  be found,” he says, still grinning. They’re stuck there, just like that, and Will’s thumb is still moving over the napkin, while he smiles softly down at it, and so Chris says, “I missed seeing you on Halloween.”

Will looks at the rest of the group, just quickly, and Chris follows his eyes. Ashley winks at them and turns her back more fully against them, and when he glances over at Will he watches him looking at his ex, Sam, where he’s laughing next to Cam, and Will’s eyes are soft and he has a lingering smile on his face. Well, fuck. 

And then Will turns back to him and grins bigger and says, “It’s been a crazy week. Missed you last night, too.”

Chris takes another sip of Will’s margarita, licking against the salt still clinging to the edge of the glass. “Yeah, sorry. Happy birthday.”

And then Cam is wrapping up his story and looking down at them, and he says, “Christopher! Tell us of your adventures in modeling, darling. Did they have to tape it down again?” and when he glances over at Will before he leans forward to answer, Will’s still looking at him, and then he winks and mouths, “Thanks.”

—-

By the time brunch rolls to a close they’ve destroyed the table, and when they’re standing around it, tossing bills onto it and making vague plans for the rest of the week, Will leans in and says, “You have time to give me a ride home?” under his voice.

When Chris looks at him, Will’s smile is small, private, but it’s reached to his eyes and yeah, okay. They’ve spent the rest of brunch knocking their knees against each other, and Will had put his hand on the back of Chris’s chair more than once, to lean close to talk, to lean over him to say something to Ashley, but it’s been maddeningly vague, all of it, until right now.

“The rest of the day is free. I’d like to change clothes, though - it got warmer than I expected. You up for a stop at my house?” and he’s aiming for breezy and casual.

“I think I could live with that - it’d be nice to see Brian,” and then Will is moving away to hug Ash and say something against her ear while Chris says the rest of his goodbyes. Cam squeezes Chris by the shoulders and says, “Go be amazing,” and, really, the smirk on his face says plenty.

It’s just 15 minutes to Chris’s house, and Will spends the time typing on his phone, chatting when he can but also a little busy, distracted by the keypad. When they walk into the house from the garage, Chris throws his keys on the table and says, “Okay, I won’t be very long. Good luck finding Brian,” and heads for the stairs, a little pissed, frustrated, before Will grabs his arm and reels him back in.

Will’s mouth feels hot, the shock of it doubling with the smell of his cologne and the taste of his mouth, tequila and salt, and when he slides his hands up Chris’s arms Chris can feel the press of his palms through his shirt and jacket. The kiss is long, wet, and filled with so much intent that Chris stumbles back to brace himself against the counter and Will follows, pressing against him.

When Will pulls away a little to press kisses along his jaw Chris sighs and says “I wasn’t sure -,” but he gets cut off, because Will has pressed his forehead against Chris’s and is sighing against his mouth.

“Sam was there,” Will mumbles slow while he squeezes at Chris’s shoulders. 

“Yeah, and?”

“And it’s better to be careful, for now. It hasn’t been that long and he can be a real bitch and it’s not,” Will licks a kiss against the side of his neck and presses both hands against Chris’s shoulder blades, tugging him closer. “It’s just, I want it to be easier.”

 And that’s - he remembers that being said to him before, over a long weekend, over a long-distance phone call, and he can feel the adrenaline spike so that it comes out bitchier than he expects when he says, “Don’t we all. Let me know how that works out for you.”

Will smoothes his hands down Chris’s back and locks them there at the small of his back, pressing their hips together even as he leans away from the waist. “Hey.” He looks at Chris, and Chris looks back - Will’s brows are drawn together, his face serious while he studies Chris, and Chris just stares back at him. His smile, when it comes, relaxes his whole face and is so damn sweet that when Will leans forward to plant a kiss right between his eyebrows Chris just sags into his arms and sighs. “I just meant with our friends.  _This_  is very easy.”

And it’s too much to get into, not right now when Will is dropping soft kisses down over his eye and his cheekbone to get to his ear, so he just keeps his eyes closed and tilts his head until he can capture Will’s mouth in another kiss.

—-

The next time he surfaces for air Chris checks the clock, and it’s already after 7. He feels heavy with the day, deeply satisfied, maybe a little hungry. He rolls back over and Will is still watching him, the side of his face pressed into a pillow but with another sweet smile on his face.

He slides back over and slips one hand under the covers so that he can wrap it around Will’s side, trace down the muscles of his back that he can’t see now but that he remembers. Will is warm and pliant, and when he nudges his way closer so that he can bury his face against Chris’s neck his muscles are loose, nothing like they’d been a little while ago when Chris had fucked into the tight heat of him and Will had moved, his back one long stretch of smooth shifting skin. They’d both been a little crazy, falling into each other and losing clothes on the way up to the bedroom, and when Chris had rolled Will over and draped himself over his back, pressing sloppy kisses across his shoulders, Will had stretched into it and sighed out, “fuck,  _yes_ , happy birthday to me,” and smirked back at him, so that when Chris slipped a finger inside his body for the first time he’d been grinning.

He buries his hand in Will’s messy hair and presses his face closer while Will hums against his neck, and Will says, muffled and close, “Damn, you feel good like this.”

Yeah. He does.

 —-

And then it’s almost midnight, and they’re sitting in Chris’s SUV in the parking lot of Will’s apartment. Will has slid over and is shoving him against the car door, kissing him loud and obnoxious, and he still can’t stop smiling.  Will peppers his face with kisses, then noses down behind his jaw to drop a kiss under his ear and mutter, “mmm, still the best spot. And look, it’s the waterlogged civilization of Atlantis!” 

Chris finally shoves Will back into his own seat, kissing him one more time and pulling back with a loud smack.

“Ready to get rid of me already?”

“You’re the one who wanted to come home.”

“‘Want’ and ‘need’ are complicated,” and Chris just leans forward and kisses the rueful smile off his face; he can’t  _stop_  and he should be more worried about that than he is. He remembers this feeling, remembers what it feels like to come down from it.

Will just pulls back and checks his phone, swearing at the time. “Yeah. I have to go, and you need to get home.”

Chris leans back against his seat and stares out the windshield. “Yeah.” In one minute Will is going to get out of this car and go back to his life and then Chris will drive back to his own, and suddenly he regrets part of the day. They’d fucked, and their touches had been firm sometimes and gentle at others. They’d stared at each other for long drowsy minutes cocooned in his bed, and they’d chatted over slapped-together sandwiches in the kitchen, but right now all he can think about is Will talking last week about how he wasn’t ready for another relationship, and everything he knows about how that can end.

Will reaches over and grabs his hand, squeezing it until Chris has to rock his head against the headrest and look over at him. His face is gentle, fond, and then Will says, “Hey. Easy. It’s the easiest thing - we just take it a little bit at a time and let it make us happy. Are you happy?”

Chris rubs his thumb over the side of Will’s hand and says, “I can be.”

And then Will rolls his eyes and tugs, and he goes, and Will mutters, “Yeah, you’re fine,” against his mouth.

He gets a text message 10 minutes later, with “Amelia Earhart’s body,” and at a red light Chris sends back, “We already found that.”

And then 30 minutes later, when Chris is pulling into his garage, he gets another text.

“Exactly.”

—-

The week is busy - he pounds out another chapter of revisions and he does more prep for NYC, with him and Alla spending all day Tuesday texting back and forth to get things nailed down. Thursday morning Will texts him just before Chris is leaving the house.

“Dinner tonight?”

“Have to be late, but yeah. What do you think about,” and he leans against his kitchen counter and types out a suggestion - a place they once hit months ago as part of a group, and that he remembered Will particularly liking. He’d pronounced the lasagna “so fucking perfect, I need more of that in my body,” and Chris grinned to himself when he remembered taking that moment to notice that Will did, in fact, have a very nice one.

By 10:30 they’re winding up dinner, and Will is leaning back against the banquette and watching him. They’ve been quiet - conversation was easy, but not loud, not with just the two of them there, and the meal has felt… hushed. Intimate. They’ve been silent for about a minute, just sipping at glasses of wine and letting their eyes linger on each other. Will has very nice hands, Chris thinks, and he likes his shoulders. Their eyes catch, and so Chris leans forward and says, “Do you want to come home with me?”

Will holds his gaze and says, “I put a bag in my car when I left my apartment,” and Chris can’t get out of there fast enough. 

—-

The garage is dark, the car’s engine keeps making little pings and sighs behind him, and Will’s hand is cupping his cock through his jeans. One hand is fisting Will’s hair, holding him there while they share deep, wet kisses, and the other is sliding against Will’s chest, slippery cotton making it difficult to get a grip, to cling on like he wants to.

“Fuck, it’s only been four days but I - oh, god,” and Will lolls his head back while Chris sucks hard against the side of his neck, using his grip on Will’s hair to tilt his head to the side so he can get closer, press his face in just the way he wants it. Chris buries a moan there against spit-slick skin, humps into Will’s hand when he squeezes and strokes. “Oh god, this is crazy,” Will laughs out toward the ceiling of the garage, grinding against Chris’s thigh. 

Chris keeps his face nuzzled into Will’s neck, sucks and lips idly at it when he moves his hands to tug at Will’s shirt and start on the buttons, and when he gets through enough to shove his hands under he does, gripping at his sides and pulling him close enough that Will pulls his hand from between them so they can rut against each other. Will’s hands slap against the window of Chris’s car and he leans his weight fully against him muttering, “Shit, I want to fuck your brains out, fuck,  _fuck_ ,” and Chris shivers.

He shoves him back and starts unbuttoning his own shirt, heading for the door into the house. “Don’t forget your bag, and hurry. I want you to undress me,” and he steps over the bag that Will had dropped on the ground when he ducked under Chris’s closing garage door. He’s only four steps up the stairs before he hears the house door slam behind him. 

Chris has barely grabbed what they’ll need before Will catches up to him and shoves him onto the bed, and Chris stares up at him when he leans down to start on Chris’s pants. He looks serious, intense like he rarely does because there’s always a smile around his eyes, and he spreads the fly of Chris’s pants open so that his cock, covered by his underwear and already so hard, is displayed, obscene where the head pushes against the waistband. 

“Holy shit, baby,” Will breathes, and he leans down, nuzzling his face against his dick again, just like a week ago, only this time it’s… the look on Will’s face is different - so turned on when he closes his eyes and nudges at Chris’s balls with his nose and breathes deep. But the comparisons to that first time are all too real, and this does feel like a new first time somehow, so Chris cups his face in his hands again, just like before, but this time he grinds his hips in a circle, slow and steady, mashes his dick against Will’s face and says, “yeah, like that. You like it?”

Will makes a broken, wet sound, and looks up at Chris while he drags his open mouth against the cloth, breathes through it so that Chris’s cock is awash in diffuse heat. And Will keeps watching him while he pulls down the waistband enough for Chris’s cock to pop out, and he watches him while he moans and leans forward until it’s in his mouth.

Chris curls from the waist so he can watch, clutches Will’s head and slowly fucks his face while Will’s eyes burn up at him from under his lashes. His abs burn but his cock is buried in hot and wet, and it’s Will, who can’t stop looking at him while he sucks him, and Chris feels ready to come already.

He falls back onto the bed with a cry, frustrated because his core has started shaking with the strain, and Will pulls off and whips his own shirt off over his head before he’s crawling up to straddle Chris, to kiss him filthy and wet while he goes back to work on his clothes. It’s a long process, because he uses his hands for buttons and zippers but he leads with his mouth, tongue and lips and teeth scraping across skin, muttering into Chris’s side, his shoulders, his inner thigh. “Fuck, I can’t stop thinking about your skin,” and “here, right here, I just want to,” right before he sinks his teeth in, soft enough not to bruise but firm enough that Chris can feel it, knows that Will  _wants_  him, that it’s making him just as crazy and nothing has ever been sexier.

He rolls them, undresses Will the same way, and when he takes Will’s cock into his mouth and cradles his balls in one hand Will has buried his hands in his own hair. His whole body rolls in one sinuous line, fucking up into Chris’s mouth while sobs and gasps rip from his throat. Will keeps talking, at least he keeps trying, and it’s one long unending string of filth about everything he wants, everything he feels. 

“Oh, fuck, your mouth. Wanna come down your throat, wanna see it on your lips. That - oh, fuck, yeah - suck on them, get them wet, yeah, oh,  _fuck_. It’s - oh, fuck, baby, yeah, fuck me with your tongue. Get in there, do it, just - yeah, oh, god. Fuck me open, get me wet, do it, harder, oh, oh, oh fuck, unnnh, ChrisChrisChris, fuck, oh,  _god_ ,” and then Chris has pressed his cock into him and braces himself over him, forearms just centimeters from his ears, so that he can stare down at him while fucks him. 

And Will doesn’t stop - he keeps talking, his vowels slurring more Southern and sweet while he stares at Chris, stares right at him and tells him what it feels like to be fucked by him.

“You’re so big, it’s… unh, unh. Oh, god, I thought about it. All week. You’re so - so damn beautiful, look at you. You feel - oh, yeah, here, let me - oh, oh, fuck me, love your cock in me, so big and hot and oh  _god_ , like that, oh, oh,  _kiss_  me-.”

Chris has no idea how he manages to last so long - he’s high on it, drugged with the pleasure, with how much Will feels, pulls him in and makes him feel, too. It’s never been like this,  _never_ , and he feels himself drive into Will, fuck him harder, long and almost punishing strokes, like he’s going to push himself into Will and never come out again, and when their mouths press together it’s just tongues and spit and shared breath and Will grunting underneath him.

When Will comes he does so with his whole body, his nails digging into Chris’s ass and his legs spasming over Chris’s arms while his cock spits wet between them, and that’s it - he buries his face against Will’s neck and breathes him in, sweat and salt and the trace of cologne, and he fucks him messy and desperate, hips pistoning on their own until Will says, “oh holy  _fuck_ ” and he comes into him, still moving, grunting and gone, his head spinning.

“Oh my  _god_ ,” he gasps out as he collapses onto him, and Will just grunts back at him, stretching his legs out as they disentangle their limbs and lie there, spent and stunned.

He drifts, pins and needles down to his actual  _toes_ , and eventually Will shuffles them sideways to nose behind his jaw again, pressing up behind his ear. Chris wraps his arm under Will’s shoulders, pillows him there, and Will leaves a kiss just under his ear says, “oh, look, it’s… some other lost thing, I don’t even know,” lazy and not even trying, and Chris snorts out something like a laugh.

They drift for a few more minutes, and then Will turns his head just enough to press a kiss against Chris’s shoulder and say, “Fuck it, that’s what I’ve lost - my resolve. I’m staying here this weekend.”

Chris opens his eyes and looks at him, at his messy, fucked-out hair, the flush on his cheeks and his glazed eyes. He looks - he looks  _perfect_ , just where he is. Chris just stares at him and lets himself jump in enough to say, “Yeah. I like that. You should.”

—-

It really is just that easy, too - they sleep, they fool around. Will blows him in the shower, and afterward Chris spreads Will out, flushed from the heat and his skin still speckled with droplets of water, and eats his ass until Will is almost sobbing in frustration. They have to empty the trash can near Chris’s bed twice and they sprawl across Chris’s sofa, eating sloppy from delivery cartons while Will goes through Chris’s movie collection to find the weirdest things he can, the things he already knows and can quote strange and obscure facts about while Chris slips a hand into his underwear and sucks on his neck.

It’s insane. It’s glorious. It’s something he’s never quite had before - he doesn’t think about _those_  weekends, at least he tries not to, but as Friday night turns into Saturday morning he realizes it doesn’t matter, that that part of his life is so over and replaced by something new. They ditch their friends, they go out for a run, they try for the farmers market and make it 15 minutes in before Will whispers something so filthy in his ear over artisanal goat cheese that they have to walk, very quickly, back to his car so they can go home. That time they  _don’t_ make it out of the garage, and they play fast and loose with the rules and Will does get to see Chris with his mouth shiny with his come, just before he licks it clean.

Chris doesn’t work on his book, at all - it’s too hard to think about a children’s adventure when Will’s hand, his mouth, is likely to land on him at any moment. He thinks a little about the script, trying to keep sex from creeping in around the edges, and he leaves the house for an hour and a half to get a quick scene in with Whoopi while she’s in town, but mostly he spends the rest of Saturday on the lazy edge of turned on, glutting himself in Will’s body every time he can move.

Saturday night the TV is running and they’re back on the sofa, and Will has straddled his lap and settled in, not even kissing him but just rubbing their faces together. Chris clutches at his sides and tries to time their breaths so they’re running as one - he wants his abdomen to give out, breathless, when Will fills his lungs with air, just so they’ll fit together better. It’s silly, fine, but it’s good - they’re close, quiet. 

Will says, “Just think, we could be out with everybody right now,” and Chris only tenses for a moment, because then Will kisses down behind his jaw and says, “instead of staying in and hunting for Obama’s real birth certificate.” 

He snorts out a laugh, ruining any chance he had of getting their breathing right, and says, between sputters and giggles while he lifts his head, “This is all in service to your country?”

“Only chance I’m ever going to get,” Will says.

Chris hums at the way Will’s light stubble scrapes across his collarbones, and a few seconds later he says, “Be honest - how long have you been saving that one?”

Will sits up, and gets his hands into Chris’s hair to shake his head a little bit. “Oh, Christopher. A boy has to have  _some_  secrets,” and then he kisses him.

That night as Will falls onto the bed, Chris puts his phone on the nightstand and says, “I have to go back in to work tomorrow, pretty much all day.”

Will turns on his side and frowns at him. “You just found out?”

“That it was happening for sure, yeah.” He slides down onto the pillow, turns to face him, too. “I knew there was a chance and we talked about it when I was there today, but we’re usually not completely sure until a day or two before. The schedule is always changing.”

Will reaches out, scooting closer and pulling him until they’ve settled with Will’s head pillowed on Chris’s shoulder, one hand drifting across his chest.

“So weird. Is that a TV thing or a Glee thing?”

“I have no idea - a little of both, maybe? Our cast is just ridiculous,” he says, reaching over to hit the lamp so the room is dark.

“Too many people,” Will says, slipping a hand under Chris’s waist to tug him in a little tighter before running his fingers over his chest again, back and forth, a steady sweep.

“Yeah, it’s always kind of a zoo. So I’m….” Will shifts his legs, runs his hand up to squeeze at his shoulder, turns his head to drop a kiss to the one he’s resting on, and Chris goes on. “Will you stay while I’m gone? It won’t be long.”

 “Oh thank fuck,” Will breathes out.

Chris grins into the dark, thoroughly charmed. “Oh really?”

And they’re quiet for a minute, just their breathing and the slide of hands over skin, until Will says, “Yeah,” and then, after another pause, “I like it here.”

He waits for it - for another joke about his jawline, for something to take the moment back apart, but it never comes, and then he falls asleep.

—-

The next morning comes too early, and he sits on the edge of his bed, rubbing one hand up and down Will’s strong back and peppering kisses across his shoulders, trying to gently wake him up just enough that he’ll be easily able to go back to sleep.

Will takes one deep breath and jerks away, going suddenly stiff before relaxing back against Chris’s touch, and Chris grins at how used he’s getting to seeing Will wake like that. He leans down and presses a longer kiss against the back of shoulder, and Will hums when he does.

“Good morning,” he whispers against his skin. “I’m sorry to wake you up, but I have to go, and I wanted you to know I was leaving.”

 Will takes another deep breath, stretching to turn over. “Hey,” he says, his eyes still sleepy and the crease of the pillow clear on his cheek. “‘K. What time will you be back?”

 “I hope by 7, but I’ll let you know. I left a key on the table in case you change your mind and want to go home, but…” he watches Will blink up at him, trying to clear the fuzz out of his brain so he can listen better. “I hope you’ll be here.”

Will just leans against his wrist where it’s bracing him up, rubs his cheek against it. “Let me know when you’ll be home, and I’ll be here. Give me enough warning and I’ll make dinner and run you a bath.” His smile is still sleepy, but that smartass humor is in there somewhere, and Chris grins at him before he drops a noisy kiss on his forehead.

“Okay then, wifey dear. I’ll be in touch,” he says, and Will just grins and turns to bury his face back in the pillow.

—-

He looks at his phone, waits, doesn’t want to wake Will up, and so he responds to email. Lea presses coffee on him, claiming that he somehow looks both sleepy and restless, and he shoots off a tweet about his adventures in caffeination. He hopes it’ll be bait, that when Will sees it he’ll give him a little text, poke him back, play with him.

He’s disappointed until just before noon, when Will sends him a photo Brian stretched out along the stretch of his bare thigh, the familiar rumpled pale blue of his favorite sheets in the background. The text says, “Got lonely. Found company,” and Chris grins and swears to keep this photo forever.

The afternoon is a frenzy of filming and flirtation. He gets distracted more than he should; Lea gives him a look, Brad has to call his name more than once to get his attention. It doesn’t matter; he cares, obviously, he  _always_  cares, but he’s been so on point for so on long that he feels justified in letting himself phone it in a little. Today the job that’s always been his dream come true feels like just another job, and when he grins and sends another text before hopping onto his mark, he feels all over again like he’s finally actually  _made it_.

From Chris: Cute, but I worry about dander. Maybe you should keep him off the sheets, for your safety and comfort?

From Will: Good idea. I took a Claritin, and he’s lying on my chest right now.

From Will: My bare chest.

From Chris: You know what those crazy kids say on the internet….

From Will: That you’re fucking Darren?

From Will: Kidding. [Photo attached]

From Chris: Nice. You’ll need to shower all that cat fur off, though, at some point.

From Will: You’re full of good ideas. [Photo attached]

From Chris: Seems like you’re making good use of my bathroom.

From Will: True story: I once seduced a hot guy in this bathroom.

From Chris: So you’ve made *very good use of my bathroom.

From Chris: And that’s not how I remember that story.

From Will: I don’t know what you’re talking about. You should let me tell the story. He was wearing this sleeveless bodysuit. Ridiculous, but so damn hot.

 

From Chris: What kind of freak wears a bodysuit?

From Will: Oh, honey. You have no idea.

From Will: It’s worth it. He has other assets.

 

From Chris: Stop it, you’re making me jealous.

From Chris: Or embarrassed.

 

From Will: Are you feeling possessive?

From Chris: You’ve spent the last three nights in my bed. A man can get ideas.

 

From Will: You always have the best ideas.

From Will: Speaking of your ideas: what do you want for dinner?

 

From Chris: … not where I thought that was going, but okay.

From Chris: There’s a book of menus in the drawer under the silverware.

 

From Will: Hush, Brian is back in bed with me.

From Will: Keep your naughty ideas to yourself.

From Will: What time do you think you’ll be here?

From Chris: Replaced by a cat already. The thrill is gone.

From Chris: In spite of a distracted actor, things seem to be going well. 7?

 

From Will: Get home. We’ll work on getting the thrill back.

From Will: Here. Get back here. Whatever.

From Chris: Wow. I’ll be home soon.

From Chris: Setting up for the last shot now. Order something?

From Chris: Will?

From Chris: Leaving now.

When he walks in, Will is dancing around his kitchen in shorts and a loose tank top, his ipod sitting in the dock on the counter and shaking his ass while he scoops rice from a pot onto a pair of plates. Nearby a skillet of what looks like chicken and vegetables is running, and Chris leans against the doorway and watches Will snag a piece of chicken from the pan, flail about for a minute because it’s hot, and drop it on the floor for Brian, who is winding around his ankles.

“Shhh, don’t tell Daddy,” Will says to Brian, and that’s it - Chris drops his keys on the counter and moves forward to wrap his arms around Will, dropping a kiss on his neck before Will can even register that he’s come in.

“Busted. Naughty, encouraging bad habits.”

Will leans back into him a little, and Chris rubs their cheeks together while Will hums.

“Poor Brian, reduced to a life of Science Diet. You’re so mean.”

“I didn’t mean  _his_  bad habits. What am I going to do when I have to come home to an empty house and no dinner on the table?” It’s nice, it is - but it’s also  _weird_. The last person who made him dinner is his mother.

Will props the slotted spoon on the edge of the frying pan and turns in his arms, a cheeky smile on his face. “It’s so sad to be you,” and then he kisses him.

Dinner is delicious, and so is the rest of the night. He waits for Will to start to pull away, to get ready to go home, but after dinner they wash dishes together and drift up to Chris’s bedroom, and he’ll take what he can get.

 —-

Will works from home on Monday - rather, from Chris’s home. When Chris jokes he’s going to get himself fired over a sex-filled weekend, Will quips back that it would be worth it, totally. He also assures him that it’s a slow time right now, and he’s been there long enough for everyone to trust him. Chris is joining Lea for the Barbra Streisand concert that night, and he has an early call time tomorrow, plus he’s expected to be on set most of the week, so it’ll be back to reality soon enough.

It’s a lazy day, because they both do have some work they have to get done from the comfort of the couch. Will answers emails, alternating between his phone and tablet, while Chris is hunched over his laptop with the sequel to ‘The Land of Stories’ open needling away at it. He’s neglected it long enough from their marathon sex weekend. Finally, after a few hours of solid work, Will sighs and tosses his tablet on the coffee table, rubbing at his eyes. “I’m going to go make some tea. Do you want some? Or your preferred Diet Coke?”

Chris ponders for a moment. Tea sounds warm and comforting, and just about perfect. He looks up from his laptop screen to say, “Tea sounds great, thanks.” When Will comes back holding two mugs, Chris has repositioned, stretching his legs out in front of him on the couch with his back against one of the arms. Will grins at the sight, passing him a mug and sitting down at Chris’s feet. He’s still grinning as he gets situated with the remote, turning the television volume down low so it won’t disturb Chris’s writing environment. “What?” Chris asks as Will rubs aimlessly at his calf.

“Those glasses just look like they’re about to fall off your face.” He reaches out over the laptop and pushes them up further onto the bridge of Chris’s nose. “Yeah, I like those on you.”

“They complement my bone structure?” Chris asks with a tilt of his head, sticking his neck out a bit to show them off, and Will chuckles, returning his hand to Chris’s leg.

“Something like that.” He opens his mouth again, and Chris wonders if he’s going to give him something else he’s hiding, continuing their game, but he doesn’t. He lets the compliment settle instead, turning his attention to the TV and flipping channels. “Alright, so it looks like we have Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or Project Runway season two.”

“Project Runway,” Chris replies instantly without looking up from his laptop. “Season two has Andrae at Red Lobster and Beverly Hills is the worst of all the Housewives.”

“Point,” Will says, flicking back to Style. “Now if it were New Jersey …” His mouth twists up in a smile, and Chris matches it.

“Those bitches are my favorite.” He settles back into the paragraph he was working on, Will’s fingers still heavy against the inseam of his jeans and the drone of the TV low in the background, the mug of tea warm in his left hand.

He could get used to this.

—-

Will leaves when Chris heads to Lea’s, and he’s almost late because there’s one too many goodbye kisses in the garage. The Streisand concert is amazing, the perfect note on a pretty spectacular few days, and Chris doesn’t even have to fake the smile for the paparazzi that Lea’s people obviously called as he links his arm with her leaving the venue. He’s not as giddy as Lea, of course, because it’s Streisand and it’s her, but they’re both wearing matching toothy grins when they tumble into the towncar, so Chris rides that high and throws caution to the wind.

He waits until the driver pulls away from the Hollywood Bowl and makes sure the privacy partition is fully in place and then - “Can you keep a secret?” Not because it’s a secret, so much, but because with Lea, you have to specify if you don’t want her running her mouth.

She squeals, loudly, still in full concert mode. “I am the best at keeping secrets, Chris, you know that.” It’s a blatant lie, she’s downright awful, but for him, she’ll do anything. He’s actually fairly certain her version of secret keeping for him is telling Cory or Jonathan Groff the second she sees them so she doesn’t burst, but he’s okay with that. They’re actually good at it.

Chris waits a moment as they pull down the street, traffic heavy with everyone else trying to get out at the same time. He hasn’t told anyone yet, he realizes. Ashley already knows, and he has no idea who Will has discussed this with. If anyone in their group suspects anything, no one’s addressed it head on, but he hasn’t seen anyone since that Sunday aside from Ashley. He’s been  _busy as fuck_. “There’s this guy,” he states simply, and there’s another squeal.

“I  _knew_ it! I knew you were up to something with all your texting on set!” Lea gasps excitedly and takes his face in between her palms. “Tell me all about it. How long have you been seeing him? Have I met him before? Is it someone new?”

He laughs and pulls her hands away from his face into his own. “I don’t think you’ve met him, but he’s one of Ashley’s friends. He’s been hanging out with us for a while and he went out with us Halloween weekend, and then we saw each other again the Sunday after.” Chris takes a deep breath, wondering if he should divulge the next bit of info. He usually doesn’t share details like this with Lea; they’re close, but Ashley is usually his girl for that. However, Ashley knows Will, she’s known him longer than Chris, and Lea is  _right here_.

“And then he came over on Thursday and didn’t leave until I came here to meet you,” he adds a bit quickly, all in one breath, waiting for her explosion.

“Christopher,  _you minx_!” Lea stares at him for a moment, her shoulders shaking from side to side to some song that must be playing in her head as she squeezes at his hands. “He stayed at your house the whole time you were on set? So, you  _didn’t_ actually try coffee for me. You were just exhausted from your weekend escapades. That’s moving kind of fast for you, Chris. Are you -”

“No.” He cuts her off, because he knows where Lea’s headed. “It’s not serious, we’re just getting time in. You know what my month looks like. He just got out of a relationship and now is an awful time for me. I couldn’t devote enough time to starting something serious right now…”

“It’s always an awful time for you,” Lea points out, pulling her hands back to play with the ends of her hair and look out the window. “Was his recent relationship with  _a guy_  at least?” she teases, and he pushes at her shoulder as she grins wickedly.

“Shut up. We’re fine on that front. He’s older, he’s thirty.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket to find a photo of the two of them from Halloween, one where Will isn’t wearing his mask so his face is fully shown.

“Oooh la la! Cory’s thirty,” Lea points out, as if Chris hasn’t known Cory just as long as he’s known Lea. He stares at her pointedly for a second, wanting to point out all of the many things wrong with that statement, before passing over his phone. “I’m just saying! Oh, he’s _cute_ ,” she decides, drawing out the syllables, and starts flicking through the rest of his photos from that night.

“Okay, okay, that did not give you carte blanche to my photo albums.” Chris reaches out to grab the phone from her and pocket it again. “Will. His name is Will. He’s not an actor, but he’s been behind the scenes in the business enough to know how things work and can hold his own.”

“So even though it’s not getting serious now, you want it to be.” It’s a statement, not a question. Lea can see right through him. She might be a ditz, but she’s been around Chris long enough to watch him grow up and can read him like a book.

“I didn’t say that,” he finally says, looking out the window himself. They’ve finally escaped the heavy traffic and are headed towards Lea’s.

“No, but you’re thinking it. Even if you haven’t realized it yet.” Chris thinks back to waking up to Will in his bed each morning and how comfortable it felt, how easy it would be to fall into the routine of having that all the time. And then he remembers past disappointments and why he doesn’t let himself think like this and shakes himself back to reality.

“Hey.” Lea snaps her fingers in front of his face. “Remember I told you they all won’t be bad eggs? This sounds like a good one. You have to let yourself be happy sometimes, Chris.”

 “I’m trying,” he answers, and for once, he’s telling the truth.

—-

Wednesday morning’s spent finalizing New York plans with Alla because he’s on set the rest of the week. He has a Saturday night flight, and he’s planning on being on set through Friday - knowing how things go, they’ll be running over, and he’s got scenes to shoot every day. There’s a rush to get everything in, because he and Lea will be in New York, and then there’s Thanksgiving and the press he has for Struck by Lightning,  _and there’s just no time_.

After his meeting with Alla, he has a scene to shoot with Mike and Lea in the afternoon. Things are going smoothly and it looks like it’s shaping up to be a somewhat early escape. Chris shoots Will a text on his lunch break, “Free for dinner? I’m feeling like Mexican.”

Will answers a few minutes later. “Si! Bueno! (That’s the extent of my spanish vocab.) What time do you think you’ll be done?” Chris sets down his craft service sandwich to answer, and Lea shoots him a knowing look which he ignores. “I should be out of here by 7, everything’s on schedule so far, so let’s make it 8? Let you know if things change?”

It’s the kiss of death. Everything starts going wrong after that. The lighting isn’t right, Lea keeps flubbing her lines, and by the time Chris rushes to his trailer, it’s pushing nine. “Just wrapping now. I can head straight there, meet you in 30?” Chris planned on going home to change and shower and make himself look a bit more presentable. He’s going to have ridiculous Kurt Hummel hair, but honestly, at this point he’ll just have to deal. He saw Will just over forty-eight hours ago, he doesn’t know why it seems like a lifetime before today.

Will’s already at a booth in the back when he arrives, sipping on a margarita with a matching one waiting for Chris, chips and guac in the center of the table. “I’m going to have to get used to these late dining habits to keep hanging out with you.” Will’s smile reaches his eyes as he slides the extra drink across the table towards Chris as he slides into the booth. “You look exhausted.”

“Codeword for telling me I look like shit,” Chris corrects, and Will opens his mouth to protest, but Chris soldiers on. “This is just  _the worst_  time. You know I keep a lot on my plate, but this is a whole different level, and to make matters worse, the craziest stretch hasn’t even started yet.”

“Overachiever,” Will whispers as the waitress stops by to take their order. Under the table, Will’s socked foot grazes Chris’s ankle. He must have slipped his shoe off at some point, because his toes are tickling underneath the leg of Chris’s jeans as he orders his enchiladas. Will holds his gaze as the waitress leaves, and then his eyes flick down to Chris’s lips as he licks the salt off the rim of his glass. He can feel a piece stuck to the bow of his lip, so he runs the tip of his tongue over it, and Will clears his throat. “Playing dirty,” he admonishes, and Chris just shrugs, smirking as he takes another sip.

They keep stealing glances across the table as dinner progresses and Will keeps playing footsie with him, his toes eventually moving further up his calf in slow circles. Chris wishes he didn’t have a six am call time tomorrow (a time that was set so early  _because_ of his previous commitments), because he wants to take Will home and fuck him into the mattress, slow and steady until Will’s reduced to a babbling mess again. He tells him so, voice low as he leans across the booth to scoop up some guacamole with a tortilla chip since there’s no one occupying the booths surrounding them, his eyes never leaving Will’s.

Will’s foot hooks around Chris’s ankle again as he grins into his drink, putting it down to bump hands with Chris’s in the guacamole bowl. “Mmm, yeah. Shame we can’t act on that. Early call times are a travesty,” he says, a slight pout to his voice. “When do you leave again? Saturday?”

“Yep. Tomorrow I’m only shooting in the morning, but then I have a meeting with publishers. I’ll try and get packed after that, so if you want to keep Friday night free …” He trails off, returning his attention to his glass and licking at the rim, feeling Will’s eyes on him.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Will promises, and when they go their separate ways after dinner, the irresponsible part of him wishes he invited Will back anyway.

—-

Friday Chris gets to set around noon, and it’s supposed to be a quick afternoon. They only have one scene to finish up on, and the crew is in good spirits, which usually means things will go smoothly. Chris tries to stay focused to ensure getting out by the time Will’s done with work, but when there’s a snafu with one of the cameras, that’s shot to hell. Will texts him at four: “Leaving work now. Wrapping any time soon or should I find something to occupy my time with?”

“Having issues. Maybe an hour? If you want to head over, I taped a key under the doormat and can disarm the alarm from my phone.”

After that, Chris starts to lose focus a bit, he has to admit.

From Will: Wow, any one of your adoring stalkers - I mean *fans* - could have broken into your house instead of me. That’s the risk you took? :)

From Chris: I’ve got security. I’m not stupid. Also, that attack cat will suffocate you.

From Will: I took Claritin again, I am prepared for any and all Brian snuggles.

From Will: Okay, I’m here, is the alarm really off or am I getting punk’d? Are the police going to show up and arrest me?

From Chris: As fun as that would be …

From Chris: Disarmed. I’ll keep you updated on stuff here.

After three takes in a row that Brad’s not happy with, they decide to take a ten minute break to try and refocus. Chris checks his phone to a screen full of texts. Will apparently has gotten quite lonely.

From Will: I have no idea if you’re shooting anything heavy today. I know you mentioned some of the stuff they’re throwing your way is kind of serious at the moment.

From Will: But I’m here all alone and I can’t stop thinking about you and all the things I want to do to you when you get here.

From Will: You’ll probably want a shower, yeah? I wanna push you up against the tile in there and kiss all of your fucking gorgeous skin and take your cock in my mouth, been thinking about that all week.

From Will: Been thinking about how perfect it is, how it feels when you fill me up. Fuck, I wish you were here already.

From Will: I didn’t want to start without you, but I brought my bag in your room and now I’m in bed and your sheets smell like you and I’m hard just thinking about it.

The last message was sent just moments before, so Chris types out a quick reply.

From Chris: Fuck. Ten min break. Tell me more?

From Will: Nope. You want more, finish your scene and get your ass here for the real thing.

From Will: Okay, maybe a little more incentive. [Photos attached]

“You okay over there, Chris?” Lea asks as she passes, and he can hear the smirk in her voice without even looking up.

“I will be if we can ever wrap this scene. I have nine million things to do before my flight tomorrow night,” he replies tersely, quickly exiting his text messages and shoving his phone in his pocket.

“Oh, I  _bet_  you do.” Chris throws an empty plastic bottle of Diet Coke her way, but it misses by a foot and she giggles as she makes her way to the other side of the set to escape his wrath.

—-

The bath is warm, and Chris lies satisfied and a little sleepy in Will’s arms. They never had made it into the shower, but Will had moved candles from the bedroom into the bathroom sometime before Chris found him in bed, and it was just as good to clean up after as before.

Will’s chest is warm and solid and slippery behind him, and they’ve looped their legs around each other’s to try to make space. Will is nosing behind his ear, dropping soft kisses and making good on his promise to touch as much of Chris as he could, and he feels like the tension of the day is seeping out of his bones into the water.

Will hasn’t let up on peppering kisses to the back of his neck, his shoulders, soft little presses of his lips against skin, but he keeps coming back to the spot just under Chris’s ear, worrying it with tongue and teeth, and Chris tilts his head to let him in, closes his eyes, and sighs.

“What are you looking for today?” Chris says, lazy and content.

“Mmmm, clarity,” Will mumbles against his ear.

His grin is soft, sleepy, when he drops his chin to his chest. “Very spiritual.”

“Something like that.” Will is quiet for a few more minutes, and then says, “So I wanted to know….”

The pause is pregnant, laden, and Chris scoots his ass back a little so he can try to sit up, but Will doesn’t let go.

“Nooo, shh, stay here. I like you here,” and Will presses his smile back against Chris’s neck. “I just wanted to know - do you ever like to bottom?”

And just like that, it’s a flood of memories, flashbacks of a few years of sexual history in the middle of the rush that is his life. Once upon a time it had been something he thought he might want, and then he grew up. He hadn’t been free to find his own way around sex until he’d come to LA and become Kurt Hummel, and ever since people had seen him and seen Kurt  _first_ , and the only time he’d been close enough to someone to let that go it had been… underwhelming.

That’s what he tells Will, too - sort of. “‘Like’ is such a strong word.”

Will’s breathing is steady, calm, and so is the sweep of his hands up and down Chris’s arms when he says, “But you’ve tried it.”

Chris just nods and leans back, letting himself go boneless again because it’s the only way through. “Yeah. You have to try everything once, right? But it’s not - Max liked it, but it wasn’t my favorite.”

It’s not until after he says it that he realizes it’s the first time he’s said his name to Will since they’ve started this  _thing_  they’re doing, even though Max has been a point of comparison for him for all of it. He thinks about Will and Samuel, and suddenly even that conversation they had last week about how to act when their friends are around is a little easier in retrospect. He’d known that starting over, trying this  _again_ , would be hard, but he hadn’t expected it to be so  _complicated_ , somehow. Stupid, really.

“And he’s the only one you’ve tried it with?”

“Yeah. It’s… I was really young,” and he feels like an ass when he says it - he’s still really young, and he’s used to feeling that but never like he does right now. “It’s never been an issue.”

“Okay. I want to talk about it, though. Because I  _do_  like to top, and god, Chris - I really want to fuck you.” He lets himself think about it while Will keeps talking, low and steady in his ear. “I want to be inside of you, want you spread out underneath me, want to rim you and press inside of you. It’s… I don’t want to not have that. I want….” Chris shivers when Will drifts off to tongue at his ear, and Will’s chest shakes when he huffs a tiny laugh against Chris’s ear.

Will continues. “If we need to, we can figure something out, I guess. But I don’t think I want to go without that, not completely. And I think you’re wrong - you need to try everything  _twice_ , at least.” That last bit is… sharper than Chris wants to hear it.

“You’re not happy with things so far?” Even here it hurts to ask, even with the water and the sweep of Will’s hands draining so much of his anxiety about  _what are we doing_  and  _oh god New York_  and  _fucking November_. This is not who he is.

There’s a tiny frustrated sound from the back of Will’s throat and then, rough and close, so close, “I’m not saying it’s not enough. I’m saying I want  _more_. With you.”

“You do, do you?”

“Chris, what do you think we’re doing here?”

 He sags back against him, and the obvious answer is that they’re falling into something real, they’re falling in love.  It’s… Will is so damn smart, and steady and funny, and unendingly kind and unfailingly generous. He had known it would work, had been waiting for a shot at him, because even when they were just friends it had always been good, easy. But these last few weeks have been….

What Chris says is, “yeah. I know,” his voice a little rough when he does, and he reaches back to wind one arm around Will’s neck to pull him into a kiss because he feels too far away, even plastered together like they are.

“I need you to think about it,” Will says against his mouth when the kiss ends. “Because this could be so good, but I don’t want it fucked up from the start. We have to - it has to be something we can talk about, and I know that’s hard but it - I just want us to be honest.” It’s the least fluent he’s ever heard Will be, and he knows it’s because Will’s frustrated even while he’s being  _careful_ , and he loves his kindness.

“Are you - is that what you want? You weren’t sure.” Will is quiet, there’s just the drip of water from the faucet and the quiet sound of his breathing. He follows it up with, “You know what I want.”

“That was before this last 2 weeks. I’m sure. It’s…  _really_  good. Let’s see if it stays that way.”

He turns then, flops his body around in the water until they’re face-to-face. Will’s hair has wilted from the steam, and his must have, too, because Will lifts a dripping hand to push it back from his face, looking at him with a soft smile from his face. “Yes. I’m glad I convinced you,” Chris says. After everything, it feels like victory. 

Will shoves him away and then pulls him back in, kisses him sweet and wet, and when he drags Chris forward until he’s straddling his lap he kisses his neck and mumbles, “Sure, me too. Now hush - I’m about to set out looking for the lost reels of  _Batman vs Dracula_. I bet it was epic.”

Chris buries his hands in Will’s hair, tips his head back to the ceiling, and beams.

—-

Later they settle into Chris’s bed, because Will is spending the night before Chris has to leave early for the airport. Once they’re settled it’s quiet, and Chris finally says what’s on his mind.

“I want you to meet my family. Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”

Will grasps the hand of the arm that’s been draped around him. “I have plans at Cam’s for an orphan’s Thanksgiving, but… yeah. I can do that. If you’re sure.”

Chris just pulls him closer and says, “I am. They’ve never… it’s new. Just as a warning.”

And all Will says is, “okay.”

—-

Chris has half a mind to cancel the car service that’s coming to take him to the airport and let Will drop him off on his way home, but he knows there’s no place for proper goodbyes at the LAX passenger drop off area. “I get back Wednesday night,” Chris whispers against his neck softly as Will drops kisses against his forehead. “My family doesn’t come in until Thursday morning, so see you then?”

He hits the ground running once he lands. He doesn’t get any more rest on the plane and he’s thankful for the good night’s sleep he got on Friday night with Will by his side. He heads straight from the airport to filming with Lea. They have so many exterior shots they have to get in during this trip, and so few days to do it. By the time they wrap, he barely has enough time to rush back to his hotel and shower before heading to see Amber at the Cotton Club.

He’s had late night plans set up for weeks, set up before Will was in the picture, but now things have changed. So he cancels his plans. He doesn’t go out. He goes back to his hotel room, exhausted, knowing the worst is yet to come, and as his mind drifts, he can’t stop playing his conversation with Will back in his head.

Chris’s body is more tired than his mind is, so he takes a long, hot shower, hoping that will help him flip the switch. But as he washes the day away, all he can think about how Will wanted more, and he wonders if things might be different with Will.  _Everything_  has been different with Will so far, and he’s falling faster than he’s able to process.

By the time Chris steps out of the shower, he’s not any close to shutting his mind off; if anything, he’s further from it, because now he’s hard. He rubs the towel over the base of his cock as he dries off and groans. He wishes he thought ahead and tossed a dildo in his bag, because it’s been so long, and before, he and Max didn’t exactly know what in the world they were doing. Chris likes to think his skill has improved, so maybe …

But, it’s a moot point, because what is he going to do? Overnight a dildo to the hotel under Alla’s name? God, no. His imagination will have to suffice, because he certainly didn’t hate it, and maybe he could learn to compromise for Will every once in a while. He doesn’t think of the past as he wraps his hand around his dick, slick with complimentary hotel room lotion - no, he only thinks of the future and what lies ahead.

—-

No one should have to spend all day and night filming in ice skates.

Chris texts Will saying so Monday afternoon on the way to the ice rink, and the only saving grace is because of the time difference, Will can most likely stay up the whole time they’re shooting. “You better stay up and keep my ass company. My people are not ice skaters. If we go longer than eight hours, my feet might fall off.”

“I wouldn’t miss this prime entertainment,” he gets back just as he arrives on set. “Should I keep a running tally of how many times you fall? And I thought your people would be down with the ice and snow, you’re obviously not one for sunny beaches.”

After he says his hellos and heads over to change into his Kurt Hummel approved skatewear, he replies, “My people are the ones who stay inside and sip hot chocolate and gossip. Get with the program, William.”

As predicted, it’s a long, long night, and Chris gets increasingly slap-happy as the night goes on. When Darren or Adam or someone else in the crew snaps a photo or takes video with their phone of Chris acting utterly ridiculous, he gets them to forward it along so he can send it to Will. At one point when they’re resetting the audio, Darren actually goes down on his back on the ice for better perspective to snap a shot and Chris throws his arms wide and smiles just as big. “Send that to me, yeah?” Chris asks when Darren hops up, brushing the icy residue off the back of his jacket.

“What’s with you collecting all of the media today? You normally don’t care about that stuff. And who do you keep talking to, Ashley?” Chris says nothing, just smiles back at him as he pulls his phone out of the pocket of his jacket to save and forward the photo.

The fact that he doesn’t tell Darren starts to drive him crazy. “Not Ashley then. Amber? Lea? Your other friends I don’t know? I know you have friends I don’t know but you don’t usually text them the whole time we film.”

Chris continues to ignore him and types out a new text as he heads for the benches.

From Chris: I’m driving Darren mad by not telling him who I’m texting. Apparently it’s out of character for me to steal everyone’s photos and videos and text every chance I get.

From Will: It sounds like you’re having too much fun for a grueling overnight shoot.

From Will: Torturing those around you. Dancing badly and falling to your untimely demise.

From Chris: Of course I’m having too much fun, how do you think I’m going to survive this without torturing those around me?

From Chris: Also, my legs and ass are killing me. I’m putting in for a massage Wednesday night after I get home. Do you give good massages? I think I’d like to find out.

From Will: Baby, you know how good I am with my hands. I’d be happy to work all the kinks out of your muscles, fuck yeah.

“You’re texting a guy!” Darren exclaims far too loudly for the setting, and Chris just quirks an eyebrow and rolls his eyes from side to side to indicate their audience of a full crew and a gaggle of fangirls on the other side of Bryant Park. “Sorry,” Darren says, dropping his voice as he sits down next to him. “But I’m right, aren’t I?”

“My parents are meeting him on Thursday,” is what Chris says for confirmation. He wants this, he’s the one that brought it up. That doesn’t mean he’s not apprehensive about how it’ll go down. 

“Whoa, Colfer. That’s serious. Because they’ve never …” Darren trails off, both of them staring out into the ice rink where the extras are still skating around in circles.

“Nope.” Darren’s not a person he talks about his relationships with either, but Ashley’s birthday is tomorrow, so she’s indisposed, and he’s just  _there_. He really should find more people he can talk to about these things. His whole group of friends was essentially friends with Will first. “Things kind of got serious faster than I expected them to … or ever expected them to. Right before I left to come here. This month is just so fucked, you know?”

“Seriously, I am mega impressed. You were able to land a hottie new boyfriend when you had all this crazy shit going on? Props, dude.” Darren holds up his hand for Chris to high-five it, and he realizes it’s the first time anyone’s used the word  _boyfriend_. Chris hates putting labels on things. Labels can turn hurtful and mean faster than it’s worth. He’s not even sure that’s exactly what they are yet despite the fact that Will’s meeting his family in a matter of days. Even still, he can’t deny the fluttering in his chest at the word.

—-

Tuesday before the signing, Chris dials his mom’s cell. He hasn’t been putting off telling her Will’s dropping in on their Thanksgiving necessarily, but this is all new and he’s used to keeping his personal life separate from them. Not hidden, just separate, compartmentalized. Everything in his life is compartmentalized. There’s time for work, time for family, time for friends. He tries to not let things overlap too much, and maybe it’s time to let the edges blur, just a little.

“Hey Mom,” he says warmly when she answers.

“Hi honey, how are you? Don’t you have a book thing today? I didn’t think we’d hear from you until tomorrow at least, when you’re back home. Everything still on board for Thursday?” She’s trying to match his warm tone, but he can hear it, the bit of worry in her voice. He’s calling unscheduled and there must be a reason.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine. I actually wanted to talk to you about that. One of my friends, Will, is going to stop by for a bit.” He takes a deep breath and counts to three. One … two … “He actually isn’t just a friend, we’ve known each other for a long time but just recently we’ve started seeing each other.”

There’s a pause.

“Oh. Oh! Well, the more the merrier, Chris, you know that. I bought a twelve pound turkey just for the four of us. Is anyone else coming? Ashley?”

Chris lets out the air in his lungs he didn’t realize he was holding in. “No, and he’ll probably just show up for dessert. He has another meal he’s already going to, so he’s splitting his time. I just wanted to let you know.”

There’s another pause and before it can turn awkward, Chris blurts out, “Okay Mom, I have to get to this book signing. You guys are staying through Sunday so you can come to the one in LA, right?”

“Of course, honey. You know we’re all so very proud of you, right?”

He knows they are, of course they are. How could they not be? It still doesn’t shake the nagging in the back of his mind that’s always there that it’ll never be quite enough.

—-

By the time Chris gets to the airport Wednesday, he’s so overly exhausted, he knows he’ll sleep the whole way back to LA. He settles into his window seat and sends off one text before switching his phone to airplane mode. “Boarding now. I’ll text when I land in a few hours. Looking forward to calf massages and bad takeout with you.”

When he wakes up hours later, his head groggy from sleep, he turns on his phone as the plane taxis to the gate. He has a few text message notifications. One from Will: “Can you settle for semi-bad takeout? I’m jonesing for Thai. See you soon!” A few from Alla about things that need to be taken care of on Friday for Saturday’s signing that she forgot to tell him about in person. And two from his mother. A photo of Hannah holding Brian, who looks less than enthused, with the following caption: “Decided to come down a day early and surprise you! Thought you might like some home cooked food after all that travel :-)”

That’s what he gets for giving them a key and their own alarm code.

Chris groans loud enough to garner sympathetic glances from the people in the row across from him. He smiles at them apologetically and briefly considers telling his family his flight was delayed and having the driver take him straight to Will’s apartment instead. He knows he can’t do that though, if they ever found out, feelings would be hurt. It wouldn’t be worth it. He replies to his mom, telling her he is  _quite surprised_  and he’ll be home soon. He doesn’t add that Will can cook him a meal if he wanted something home cooked, because that would add insult to injury, and waits to call Will from the car.

“Hey you, back safe and sound?” Will asks when he picks up the phone, his voice lazy and relaxed and sounding just  _sinful_ , and Chris isn’t sure if he’s ever been so annoyed to go meet his family.

“Something like that,” Chris replies, biting out a laugh, and Will picks up on his mood instantly.

“You even  _sound_  tense, Chris. You weren’t kidding about needing a massage.”

“Yeah, well, that’s going to have to wait. My family drove down a day early. They’re already at my house, in my kitchen, cooking up a storm.”

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. Tomorrow’s still good though?” There’s a hint of something in Will’s voice. Not worry, but maybe uncertainly. Maybe Chris is just really tired though.

“Yeah, I told my mom yesterday that you were coming. Just text or call when you leave Cam’s so I know when to expect you.” Chris lolls his head back against the seat and scrubs his free hand over his face.

“It’s a plan. And Chris? Get some sleep tonight, you sound exhausted.”

Chris doesn’t point out that he sleeps better when Will is with him.

—-

Chris loves his family. He really does. He just wishes he had one day to himself to unwind before spending five days straight with them.

He has jet lag and exhaustion to blame for going to bed early Wednesday night and he wakes up on Thanksgiving slightly more fortified to face the world. He wakes up far too early since his body has no idea what time zone it’s on, but when he shuffles out to the kitchen at six-fifteen, his mom is already making cinnamon rolls, even though his dad and Hannah are still fast asleep and will likely be for hours. He stands with her at the counter, wordlessly offering his help, and she passes him a batch of dough, kissing his cheek.

They place rolls in the pan, still working in silence, and finally she says, “So, are you going to tell me anything about this Will character or am I going to have to ask him myself tonight when he gets here?”

And just like that, Chris stops worrying.

—-

They’ve just finished setting the table when Will shows up with a bottle of wine and a smile. “Perfect timing,” Chris says when he opens the door and adds, “thank god you changed out of that awful turtleneck. I saw Cam’s instagram.” Will laughs brightly and pulls Chris through the doorjamb to crash their lips together, and Chris lets him, because it’s been almost a week, and  _god_ , he’s missed him.

“I know absence makes the heart grow fonder, but,” Will says when they break, tapping a finger to his nose and handing over the wine.

“Thank you for bringing yourself. Thanks especially for the wine,” Chris replies cheekily as he ushers him in to make introductions.

Chris doesn’t know why he ever had any doubts. Will charms the pants off his parents and Hannah, and Hannah is usually a tough sell. After dinner, when everyone is eating pie in front of the TV, they sneak off to the kitchen to finish off the bottle of wine, and Will tries to steal kisses while Chris watches the doorway like a hawk.

“They leave Monday morning,” Chris says quietly as Will noses at his neck. “I have Monday completely off.”

“Mmmm, who did you kill for that privilege? A whole day off? After a holiday no doubt?” He places a kiss just under Chris’s ear before moving over to his lips, two kisses, quick and chaste. “I have to go in for a few hours in the morning, but I think I could get away with taking a late lunch and then just not going back.”

“You’re awful,” Chris laughs as Will’s breath tickles his jawline, more soft, wet kisses.

“I told you, it’s slow now. Things’ll pick up after award season. I’m a smart guy, I know how much I can get away with.” Chris feels Will’s smile against his skin. “Like right now I should just give up on finding the dignity for all those shoppers that are already at Walmart right now. I don’t think they’ll ever recover that.”

Chris tightens his grasp on his wineglass and laughs loudly, causing Will to explode in a fit of giggles. Hannah appears in the doorway and Chris elbows Will so he backs up a tad, and he picks up his own wineglass. “What are you two laughing at?” she asks, eyes narrowed.

“All those silly people at Walmart fighting over cheap TVs and computers and stuff,” Chris says, and at least it’s the truth. “Did Mom send you in here?” and when Hannah nods, he grabs three more small plates. “Come on, let’s eat more pie. Pumpkin or pecan?”

Just like that, Hannah and Will are debating the merits of each, Hannah for pumpkin and Will for pecan, and it’s the best Thanksgiving he’s had in years.

—-

Chris’s family leaves just after ten on Monday morning, and Chris doesn’t feel the least bit bad about lounging around until Will comes over. “Brian and I are taking the house back,” he texts, attaching a picture of the two of them sprawled out on the couch. He works through some of the bad reality TV on his DVR and doesn’t even open his laptop once. Will finally replies at quarter to two, saying he’s on his way and bringing that Thai takeout he promised last week, just unfortunately a few days late. His stomach starts to rumble, even though he’s not sure if they’ll be able to keep their hands off of each other long enough to eat first. Aside from Thanksgiving, he hasn’t had any time with Will in a week and a half.

Chris is right, because the front door is barely shut before the takeout bag is discarded on the floor and Will is pushing him back against the wall of the entryway, uttering, “ _Fuckfuckfuck_ , I missed this so much.” Chris arches off the wall into him and Will somehow gets his hand between them, yanking the hem of Chris’s shirt up and over his head. “Never want to go ten days without this again.” Will’s mouth finds the crease of his neck that’s already become his favorite, and Chris’s fingers work furiously at the buttons of Will’s shirt, because the need to feel skin against skin is getting kind of desperate.

He finally shoves the shirt off Will’s shoulders and shifts, his hands finding the swell of Will’s ass and pulling him just so. The friction is perfectly right, and he arches again, and everything is going to be over  _so fast_ , but Will’s right, it’s been ten days,  _fuck everything_. “So glad you didn’t want to eat first,” Chris teases weakly as he rolls his hips up, and Will is still sucking at the juncture where his jaw and neck meet, which is rendering Chris useless.

They don’t even move to the bedroom, or even get their pants off fully, there’ll be time for that later. Jeans are shoved down to ankles and Will is still wearing his shoes, but none of it matters. Just before Chris comes, Will tightens his grip on his cock, a smile in his eyes, and says low against his ear, “I know you’ve been home a few days, but now I can officially say welcome home.”

When they’re both sagging against the wall, trying to catch their breath, Chris replies, “I’m appropriating you to my exclusive welcoming committee.” Will smiles back at him, and they only make a move to grab the food when they notice Brian trying to climb in the takeout bag.

After they eat, they head back to the couch to tackle more of Chris’s backlogged DVR. Chris’s legs are sprawled out into Will’s, and after two episodes of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, he flips, running his hands along the underside of Chris’s legs.

“Mmmm, you’re still tense, and it’s been what, a week? Haven’t you at least soaked in the tub or something?” Will’s grinning at him from between his legs and Chris can’t resist leaning down to kiss him.

“Remember that part when I had company? The welcoming committee should see to it that I take care of myself.” He leans back against the cushions and Will reaches up to tug at his belt loops.

“Take these jeans off. I swear I’m not just trying to get you naked this time, let me give you that massage.”

Chris shoots him a skeptical look, though he’s teasing. “Oh, Will, you’re always trying to get me naked, don’t lie.” He strips down to his underwear regardless, tossing his jeans to the floor and bending his legs at the knee slightly so Will can reach. He’s only half paying attention to the TV now as Will works his fingers up his calf, kneading into the muscle there. Will reaches the back of his knee, and Chris flinches, ticklish. Will just raises an eyebrow and moves on, filing the spot away for later, massaging the muscles of his inner thigh.

“You have amazing legs,” Will says, running his cheek alongside Chris’s knee and placing a kiss on the inside of it. “You know, this might be easier if you turned over.”

“I won’t be able to see the TV very well that way,” Chris points out, but gives in just the same.

“Oh, come on, like you were still watching,” Will replies with a cluck of his tongue, and the second he’s on his stomach, he feels Will’s palms flat against his spine.

“Fuck, you’re actually good at that,” Chris groans into the couch cushions, and after that, they’re silent for a while aside from their steady breathing. Will works his hands over Chris’s shoulders and down his spine to the small of his back, and down his legs again. His strokes are firm and purposeful and Chris can feel the tension being worked out from the movement of his fingers. Once he reaches his ankles, Will works his way back up again, stopping when he reaches the line of Chris’s underwear. He places a kiss at the small of Chris’s back, and Chris shivers.

Will’s hands still, resting at the back of his thighs, and he doesn’t say anything for a few moments, so finally, Chris asks, “Will? Are you okay?”

There’s another pause, and then - “Yeah. Did you ever think about what we talked about? Because my mouth is practically watering with how much I want to rim you right now.”

His stomach flips over at the mention. It wasn’t one of the things he thought about when he was away, though he’s not sure why. Will definitely mentioned it. He rolls over halfway so he can face Will. “I - I thought about things. I didn’t think about that specifically, if I’m being honest.”

“No? But you did think about things?” A smile curls on Will’s lips, and he crawls forward in between Chris’s legs to capture his mouth in a kiss. “That means the world to me, you know that. Why didn’t you think about me rimming you?”

Chris shrugs. “It never really did anything for me. I could never come from it, and it just felt weird, so I just thought it was a waste of time. I prefer to do the rimming.”

  
“Chris,” Will says, and he can tell that Will isn’t buying his response, almost like he’s trying not to laugh. “You don’t have to come from everything. You honestly don’t have the patience to get rimmed but you do for the reverse? Sometimes stuff just  _feels good_. I bet I could make you feel good.”

“Sounds like someone has a very high opinion of himself,” Chris replies, but a smirk is forming on his face and his resolve is weakening.

“Then prove me wrong,” Will challenges. When there’s no response, Will surges forward and kisses Chris square on the mouth, pulling back only far enough for the words to ghost against Chris’s lips. “Prove. Me. Wrong.”

Chris doesn’t reply, just pushes Will back and off of him and heads towards the bedroom. His jeans are still in the living room, so he sheds his shirt and underwear before he gets to the bedroom. When Will turns the corner through the doorway, Chris is already on the bed, fisting lazily at his cock and Will hastily starts removing his own clothes.

“I hate to say it, but  _I’m_ going to prove  _you_  wrong. That’s what we want though, because then everyone wins,” Will says with one last kiss and a smirk before nudging at his shoulder, indicating he should turn over. “Fuck, baby, I just want to make you fall apart.”

Chris’s mind drifted to the last time he rimmed Will, and how much he loved it. He told himself if Will loved it that much, he could probably love it a little bit.

It doesn’t change the fact that to Chris, it’s still weird at first. The first few strokes of Will’s tongue against him still feel awkward, and he has to keep telling his brain to shut up and relax. After he gets past that though, it is different. Will’s tongue is licking firm, broad strokes against him, over and over, relentless, and then suddenly, he switches things up, circling around Chris’s rim with the tip of his tongue, sucking at it. Every time he thinks he’s settling into something, Will switches tactics, leaving him gasping for breath.

“Oh,” he finally says, the third time this happens, as Will’s tongue slows maddeningly, soft feather light touches that leave him wanting more.

“Yes,  _oh_ ,” Will replies quickly, obviously proud of his win so far, before diving back in. Chris is suddenly hyper-aware of the tight grip of Will’s fingers at his waist and the press of Will’s nose at the top of his crack and the spit that’s dripping everywhere. Chris gets what Will meant now about not having to come from everything, because while he doesn’t think he could come from this, he can feel everything building deliciously. It’s a different feeling, a slow burn, and he almost feels like he’s floating.

He doesn’t actually start falling apart though until Will edges his tongue inside, first just the tip, and then further, deeper. “Oh fuck, Will, fuck, fuck,” he cries out, fisting his hand in the sheets to anchor him as Will slowly twists his tongue in and out of his ass. There’s a tiny part of him that hates being wrong, but like Will said, what the fuck does he care for? He’s still partially right, he’s not going to come, and oh god, the urge to come is  _overwhelming_ now. “Will,  _please,_ ” as he shifts upward in the sheets, trying to get some sort of friction.

“Not yet, not when I finally have you here,” Will growls, and grips tighter, and Chris finally gives up and collapses on the mattress. Everything continues to build, wonderful heat continuing to twist deliciously inside him, and fuck, he is going to come his brains out when Will finally lets him.

He’s been so focused on the warm heat of Will’s tongue in his ass, he hasn’t even realized he’s been whining into the pillow, just Will’s name and utterances of fuck over and over again, and he must be getting progressively louder, because finally Will flips him over. “Okay, baby, come for me,” he says, in the same growly tone turned somewhat affectionate as he sucks the head of Chris’s cock into his mouth, and Chris is so, so far gone, he comes before Will can even find a rhythm.

He still feels like he’s floating a little bit as Will climbs up his body, leaving kisses randomly along the path before nuzzling against his neck. Chris rolls his face over, covering Will’s with his own, and says softly, “Not a word.”

“Mmmm, wouldn’t dare. Too busy searching … for anything that’s lost … like I said, sometimes the journey is the most fun part. Never know what you’ll find.” Will grins cheekily up at him and Chris shoves him to the other side of the bed.

“Asshole. You’re ruining my glow …” Chris tries to think of a snappier comeback, but he just wants to sleep, so he does.

When he wakes, Will’s still up, or up again, scrolling through something on his phone. Once he realizes Chris stirring, he tosses it to the nightstand, and props himself up on an arm to face him. “Hey, sleepyhead. You were out a few hours.”

“Probably needed it,” Chris says around a yawn, and pauses, closing his eyes for a moment. “I feel like we’re always at my house. Does that bug you at all?”

Will shifts closer, an arm around Chris’s waist. “I’ve told you my apartment is shit. We could hang out there, but I don’t know why we’d want to when your place is far superior. Plus, Brian would get lonely. I don’t want that on my conscience.”

A smile works its way onto his lips at the mention of Brian. He pauses again, thinking. He’s already talked to Ashley about this and she is the definition of easy going when it comes to including Will.

He turns to Will, smile in full force now, and says, “I know it’s a ways away, but do you want to go somewhere for New Years?”


	3. The Joyful Discoveries of Traveling Abroad

When he wakes, he wakes up in 2013, and he wakes up confused.

There’s a moment when he’s unsure of where he is; the light is wrong, and the ceiling is far too high. And then Will shifts next to him, rubs his whiskered face into the pillow and huffs out a long breath before he settles down into that same gentle snore that says ‘sleep’ now. Chris yawns, rolls toward him, and lets himself go. Whatever woke him up, it’ll keep.

—-

He doesn’t quite sleep; he drifts, lets himself sink into very high thread counts and the warm skin of his bedmate and fond memories. Because it’s the new year, and they’re together, in Paris.

 

He remembers, now, walking into this room late last night to find the turndown in place and the gentle light of one bedside lamp burning. The doors to the balcony had been closed against the chill of winter, but the curtains had been wide open to the night, and Will had tossed his key and his mask on the bed and drifted to the doors right away, pressing his hand against them and turning back to Chris with a smile stretching across his face. “Come and look, sweetheart." And when he took the handful of steps it took to cross to him, there it was again – the Eiffel Tower, across the gardens and the river and the whole shining city, twinkling bright against a dark winter sky now that the fireworks are over. Chris tucked his arms around Will, hooked his chin over his shoulder, and said, “Happy New Year.” Will had wrapped both hands around Chris’s arms and leaned back, and Chris couldn’t help himself - he whispered against his ear, “Welcome to Paris."

He presses his cheek to Will’s shoulder and grins sleepy and satisfied, because it wasn’t the first time he’d said that. He’d said the same thing against Will’s ear in the car they took from the airport, and then again at dinner before they went out for the night, all of them only remembering to toast each other and the holiday once they were deep into the second bottle of wine and grinning, loose and relaxed. Will had smiled at him over the deep bowl of his glass, just his eyes shining, and he had looked back until Ashley had pressed her foot against his and the moment had passed.

And before that it had been “Welcome to London", over and over – at Heathrow where Will (sleepy-eyed and ruffled) had grinned when the airport announcers had accents; at Westminster Abbey, where Will had looked from the Abbey to the Houses of Parliament, over and over; crossing the Thames, the wind biting through their coats as they battled their way through crowds to cross a bridge.

He doesn’t know why he keeps saying it. Part of it is because yes, he’s been here before, to all of these places, but never like this – never with somebody he cared about, never just for fun. But every time he does, he feels like he’s saying something else, something like, “please, come in, make yourself at home here, right next to me."

Will never seems to mind, doesn’t seem to feel patronized or condescended to. He just smiles, and if they’re alone he kisses him, something small and sweet, just for them. Last night, he had rocked back onto his heels until Chris had spread his feet to steady them, there pressed against the glass, and he’d nuzzled his cheek against Chris’s and said, “Yes, and welcome back, to you. What a way to start a year," and then he’d turned his head to kiss Chris over his shoulder, his lips turned into a smile.

Chris remembers, and dozes, and thinks about the next few days. And then he whispers, “Welcome to Paris, baby," against Will’s shoulder, and then he can finally sleep again.

—-

The next time he wakes up, Will is looking at him. This time it’s simpler; he feels the stir of morning, and he takes a deep breath and stretches from the shoulders and the hips, and when he opens his eyes, Will is just a few inches away, grinning that same sleepy smile he always has in the mornings.

“Well good morning, sleeping beauty. I thought maybe you were going to sleep forever.”

He turns his face into the pillow and hums against it, and then turns his head just enough to face him. Will’s hair is a mess and there’s still a crease of pillow across his cheek, so he can’t have been awake that long. “I woke up earlier; I wasn’t sure I could fall back asleep.”

“You seemed to do just fine.” Will’s eyes and mouth are soft, relaxed. “Another city, another year. You ready to take Paris by storm?"

—-

They spend the days running from site to site, playing busy tourists and packing in as much as they can. In London they’d stayed in the city but Paris offers so much within driving distance that they can’t seem to stay put. The hotel books them a car and every morning they meet in the hotel’s heated garden, sipping coffee while they lounge on chairs covered in sheepskins. Even here, Will is the earliest riser, and sometimes they’ll have almost an hour to linger over books and email and breakfast while they wait for Ashley and Pam to make their way downstairs.

One morning they wrap up in scarves for a lazy, aimless morning at the Louvre that has them drifting back to their hotel in pairs by mid-afternoon for coffee and a nap. Just before dusk they take a taxi to Notre Dame, and after a quick break for mulled wine and crepes on the street they join the line into the cathedral, following the sound of the organ.

“Oh. Oh, my God,” Will says under his breath the moment they walk in, and Chris isn’t sure who, exactly, he’s talking to at that moment.

He gets it; in some ways he gets it exactly. These buildings breathe history, the dust of millions of stories that have forgotten to be told. It’s like this at Westminster Abbey, too, a little, but the spaces are also really different. The Abbey feels like a memorial to every Englishman who’s ever died, to the relentless determination of the English to do things their way, and it’s probably why he’s liked it so much every time he’s visited. This feels likechurch, like the hand of God has touched this place to lay every stone Himself. And yes, sure, he’d grown up religious. But he’d never lived it like he knows Will has, and so when Chris puts his hand on Will’s back to guide him around a group of loud German teenagers and Will seems to instinctively pull away, he pushes down on his hurt and lets Will step forward, his neck craned toward the ceiling and his mouth a little agape. Will drifts on ahead of him, eyes drifting from the buttresses to the windows at the front, and he watches him go until he’s lost in a sea of pilgrims.

He lingers, looks at the serious cut-stone faces of saints, reads plaques and snippets from his phone about the historical uses of the cathedral in and around a long series of wars. He feels antsy, though, cut a bit adrift, and so he cuts across the cathedral to stand with Pam and Ashley over the cheap rosaries being sold from a case. Pam looks at him sideways and says under her voice and the droning of the organ, “Where’s your boy?”, and he tilts his head toward the stained glass and says, “He’s having a moment.” She smiles and ducks her head again, looking through the glass at everything there is for sale.

A few minutes later his hand is plucked from his side and held firm and warm in one that’s become very familiar. When he looks to his side Will is there, his eyes still bright and wide and happy. “Come here, I want to show you something,” Will says, squeezing his hand before he tugs him behind him to point out a set of windows that had to be restored after World War II.

They stand and look at them together, at the geometry burnished in light, and when he looks back at Will he’s not looking at the windows anymore. “This is my favorite place so far,” Will whispers with another squeeze of his hand, and then he adds, “It’s really special.”

There is a lot about Will that Chris still doesn’t understand, but that doesn’t stop him from giving up on finding something clever to say and just saying, “Yeah.”

—-

The next day is Disneyland, where they drink wine and then scream with laughter, all four of them stuck together like the codependent foursome they’ve become this week. He can feel it getting to him, the constant company, and so the next night when they’ve come back to the hotel tired and achy after a long day of gorgeous houses, Chris begs off to go up to bed and sends Will, Ash and Pam off to dinner on their own. There’s a little bit of teasing because it’s their last night, but Will kisses him and offers to bring him back something sweet, and Chris collapses across the hotel bed and pulls up his laptop.

His email is that kind of quiet that can be counted on between Christmas and New Year’s, that dead zone of non-productivity even for people who are always working, and even after the fall he’s had it leaves him antsy, clamoring for something to do. Even when he clicks over to the manuscript he can’t get traction, though; it’s already so close to done, and the kind of attention he needs to give it now is not something he feels remotely capable of.

Instead he closes his laptop, crosses his arms over it, and pillows his head there.

It’s been such a luxury, these spans of uninterrupted quiet time he’s been able to carve out on this trip. The biggest surprise is how few times he’s felt like he needed it. He’d wanted Will for months before he got him, and the strangest thing is how that feeling hasn’t ever gone away or eased up; the more he gets of him, the more he wants him. In some ways, this trip had felt like a test – back when he brought it up to Will he didn’t even realize it, he’d thought it was just a way to try something else for a while, but the minute they’d sat down on the flight he thought, “so let’s see how perfect he is at this," and that moment of clarity had stayed with him until after the pilot had announced they were at cruising altitude.

Since Thanksgiving they’ve been almost inseparable, and it’s almost impossible to believe that it’s only been a little over a month since they’d lain together in a bath and decided that maybe this was something a little more than they’d planned. Everything since then has been remarkable. Chris had known he wanted him; had had plans for his body since before they’d ever kissed. But more time spent together, just the two of them and with friends, have made Will just… impossibly dear, really. He’s kind, funny, smart – and he gets Chris, knows how to make space for a personality and an ambition that Chris knows can be relentless. And he has ideas of his own, plans and dreams that can come true, he’s sure of it, because Will startles laughter out of him on a regular basis and can touch him just as easily. There’s no way that a mind that sharp can’t make wonderful things happen, if he just gets a chance, just one.

It doesn’t matter how this started; he knows just how serious he is about this, and he’s pretty sure he’s not alone in that. Their last night in London they had been lying in bed, sticky and sweaty, and he’d just come his brains out with three of Will’s fingers up his ass (his mouth, god, Will’s filthy mouth that channels every whim of his endlessly creative mind), and they’d been sort of… breathing at each other, really. The lights were dim and Will had just finished whispering in his ear about what it was like, feeling Chris come around his fingers like that, and he’d reached out and brushed back some hair that was sticking to Chris’s forehead and said, low and soft, “I really love you like this, baby."

The moment had held until Will had bent to kiss him again, and now, days later, Chris can hear everything that was said that night, and everything that wasn’t. If six weeks ago they were lying in a bathtub in California and falling in love, four days ago they were lying in a bed in London and already there, and all that’s left is to say it out loud and see what happens next.

He stares at the closed drapes that hold back the city and the way the lamplight from the room makes shadows of the folds, and he lets that sink in. He imagines saying it, imagines hearing it. He thinks about calling his mother, about calling Alla, about taking him to parties and events and taking him home to Clovis. He feels like this should be serious, like this is the kind of moment he’s never known exactly how to write because it felt like it should come with a swelling soundtrack and a thunderclap, and instead all he has is street noise and the squeal of a squeaky wheel from the hotel corridor.

And then his phone rings, and Will’s sleepy grin is on the screen.

"How are you feeling?" is the first thing that Will says when Chris picks up, and Chris smiles darkly at the question he absolutely can’t answer in one simple sentence.

What he says, though, is, “Better. I’m fine, I just needed a little quiet to clear my head."

"I figured. Are you still dressed?"

Chris pauses, and then says, “Where are you? If we’re doing this, can’t you just come up here and cut out the phones?"

Will’s laugh is clear, a little loopy, but untouched by the echo that seems to come with high ceilings and stone floors; he’s not in the lobby, then, and probably not at dinner. “I’m outside. Look out the window?"

He peers into the night, and Will coaches him. “There you are. Left. No, left more. Down… there you go," and he can see just a smudge of light waving side-to-side in the gardens across the street – Will’s phone, and there’s a brief rustle of fabric before his voice comes back. “I found something I wanted to show you. Feel like coming down here?"

He pauses again; he didn’t even kick off his shoes before he stretched out on the bed. The last thing Will wanted to show him were the swans at Versailles, just earlier today, and they had been kind of wonderful in their little waddling majesty. Will had told him a story about the civic tensions among their little avian enclave and then texted his sister with a photo, a fond smile on his face because “she always liked swans”. The window is cold to the touch, but Will sounds excited, and he doesn’t want to wait to see what he’s found this time. He doesn’t want to wait for anything. “I’ll be down there in 15 minutes. Don’t move, or I’ll never find you again."

—-

He can see him from the moment he crosses the road, his head looming above some carefully trimmed hedges and the lit-up screen of his phone dancing just below, bopping along the edge of the hedges, and he grins and picks up the pace. When he’s just a few yards away he can begin to see what Will has found - a quiet square, surrounded by hedges and filled with trees, and when he jogs up the few steps to reach him he grins wider, because Will is turning to greet him from his perch standing on a bench.

Will stands there while Chris walks to him, his pace picking up as he goes, and he looks beautiful, a dopey grin on his face and his hands in his pockets while he waits for Chris to catch up to him. And then once Chris is closer, once he’s had a chance to step into the square and see how empty it is, how quiet and dark, he’s stepping faster, and Will’s grin widens and his hand comes out to pull him onto the bench, and then there he is - standing on a bench in the middle of a dark garden in Paris, Will pressed against him and in his arms and grinning like he’s just discovered something mysterious and wonderful.

“Well hello,” Will says into his neck. “You do feel better, don’t you?”

“This is perfect,” Chris breathes against Will’s face. “How did you find it?”

He laughs. “This isn’t even what I wanted to show you. But we walked through here again after dinner and there’s a hedge maze over there that I thought you would like.”

“Oh, really?” and he turns his head to look. He can see it now, just a few yards back, the heads of bushes coming in lines, and when he turns back to Will he says, “So that’s wonderful. I didn’t know those were there.”

“I can’t believe it’s right here. I can’t believe we’re here - that just outside our hotel there’s a garden with a freaking maze in it, and then the Louvre is right behind it. That’s ridiculous.”

He wants to welcome him to Paris again, but he doesn’t; they feel past that now. He feels manic, energized, maybe because of the time he’s had to himself and maybe because of the cold and maybe because it’s just the two of them, right here lost in this beautiful city on a quiet January night. He wants to run through the maze with Will, chase him, be stupid and playful and loud and ridiculous. He wants to kiss him when he catches him. And he can, because Will found this for him and then brought him here, went off on his own and then came back for him, and the smile on his face is sweet and happy, and so Chris kisses him softly, holds his smiling face with careful hands and brings their mouths together, and when the kiss breaks he says, “I love you,” before they can pull back an inch.

Will’s arms tighten around him, bring him closer, and Chris spares a moment to realize that as close as they’re pressed together right now, nobody could ever recognize his face. And then Will whispers, “I love you, too, baby,” and kisses him again.

Together they stand on that bench for what feel like stolen hours. They whisper against each other’s skin, forge promises between their mouths, and later Will catches him in the maze, shoves him up against a hedge, and says, “Welcome to Paris” before he bites his ear.

—-

He hits the hedge again, and it prickles against the back of his neck. Will is on him, his mouth hot and wet, and his hands are firm around his arms, squeezing and kneading at his biceps. “What are you gonna do now?” Will pants into his mouth. “Now that I’ve got you?”

Wrestling is not his gift, but he knows Will’s body, knows every inch of what will leave him weak and whimpering, and so he grins and moves from the elbow to get his hands right back on Will, sliding them down so that his fingertips are just inside the waistband of Will’s pants. “Maybe I’ll just-” and then he digs his fingers into the muscle there, pressing for bruises, and the shock of it makes Will’s hands spasm. He takes his moment, then, twisting free until he can get behind him and put Will right back where he had Chris, only this time he has Will’s arms behind him and his face (careful, he thinks, it’s a good face) is pressed into leaves and branches. Will’s arms are making it hard to get too close, but he goes at him hips first, tries to press him into the hedges, which have way too much give in them to really make this effective, but what the hell. “Who’s got whom?”

Will wriggles and turns his head, rasping out a huff of a laugh into the leaves and grinning back at him. “Oh my god, listen to you. ‘Whom’. I’m being pinned by a grammar teacher; this is pathetic.”

“I’m a writer, bitch,” he says, heart pounding and grinning while he grinds up against Will’s ass, pressing him further into the hedge.

“Yeah, like that. That’s better,” and Will’s voice is so earnestly supportive that the moment suddenly strikes Chris. He can’t help it - he tips his head down until his face is buried in Will’s hair, and he giggles, lets his hands loosen on Will’s arms until they can slip down to find his hands.

Their fingers tangle together and Will squeezes and holds, and then suddenly he’s moving again. He’s shifting them away from the bushes, so they’re free and standing in the middle of the gravel path, rocks sliding under Chris’s feet while Will grabs and spins and tugs him until he’s in his arms, in exactly the opposite position they were in before. Will doesn’t stop, though, not until he’s got one arm across his chest, pulling him back and clutching him close, and the other hand is down and cupping Chris’s crotch. It’s a parody of a hug, dirty and forceful and Chris want to toss his head back and scream for him.

Will doesn’t help. He kneads at the tight denim, digging his fingers in to massage Chris’s balls through the fabric. “That’s right, baby. I want to get down on my knees for you, get this dick in my mouth where it belongs. You want it here? Want me to suck you off outside, in Paris, where you’ll scream until they come running and find you in the dark with your cock in my mouth and my fingers up your ass?” Will’s still panting, out of breath, and they’re both a little sweaty, so that when Will hisses filthy against his ear Chris can feel the damp press of his hairline against his own.

The image has its appeal. He’s been so careful, they both have, and he’s just tired of it. He knows they wouldn’t, knows they won’t, but the image hits him in his balls, right where Will is still kneading. And then Will says, “But first you’re going to have to catch me,” and he presses a kiss against Chris’s cheek, sweet and playful, before he drops him and runs off.

Chris is into the dark after him like a shot.

—-

Will plucks a twig from Chris’s hair when they’re in the elevator, and he flings it to the ground while Chris presses against the back wall and closes his eyes and giggles. They’d cleaned up as best they could before they’d left the garden, brushing each other down and tucking in their shirts, and they bumped shoulders on their way back across the street, but all of it was for nothing - the city is still sleeping off the holidays, and they’ve seen nobody as they made their way here.

Chris never did have dinner, and he might be a little hungry, but there’s time for that later. He still feels jittery, a little, although running through the dark and the cold has helped work some of that off. Now he just wants what he’s been promised; he wants Will’s hands on him, to strip off his clothes and Will’s and breathe him in, and all that’s between him and that is three floors and 25 yards of hotel corridor. He might have missed the last dinner in Paris, but this is one thing he feels very present for.

Will must be thinking along the same lines, because when he finishes his giggle on a sigh and opens his eyes, Will has leaned back against one side of the elevator, and is just watching him.

His eyes are dark and his grin has gone dirty, and Chris knows that as soon as he opens his mouth something ridiculous and obscene will come out of it. He waits for it, watching Will watch him. His eyes are everywhere – flickering from his hands to his mouth to his crotch and down to his toes, and Chris spreads his arms wide to let him look while he continues to wait for him to say something. He doesn’t, though, and he finishes his inspection sometime while Chris is looking at how Will’s shoulders fill out his coat and thinking about pushing it off of him, because when he looks up when the elevator dings for their floor, Will is staring right back at him.

And then Will turns and walks right out of the elevator without a word.

He catches up to him when Will is keying into their room, and as soon as they’re inside Will is toeing off his shoes and shoving off his coat to toss it in a high-backed chair. Chris follows suit, throwing his hat across the room and ripping his scarf from his neck, and when he looks up from unbuttoning his coat, Will is right there to press his hands inside and against Chris’s waist, pushing him backwards until his back is against the closed bathroom door.

His coat is still on when Will whispers his name against his lips and takes his mouth in a searing kiss. Chris is ready for him, though, opening to his tongue, to taste him again.

We’re so good at this now, he thinks, and they ought to be. In the two months since Halloween they’ve been sleeping together so often and so steadily that they’ve gotten sloppy. He remembers back when they’d first gotten together how everything had felt at least a little like a performance; he remembers kissing Will for the first time in his kitchen, and lying to him about what he wanted in his own bathroom. Every step of the way – meeting the work friends, coming to set, going to parties together – there’s been a little bit of holding back, like a very long auditioning process, and when Will presses his tongue sloppy and wet into his mouth and reaches down to grab at his ass with greedy hands, he’s finally sure the decision has been made, for both of them.

"Fuck, Chris, I am so in love with you. I can’t," and Chris tilts back his head and grins at the ceiling while Will’s tongue licks at his ear and his hands go to work under his clothes, sweeping up layers to get to more skin, because yeah, yes, it’s overwhelming. He can’t either.

"Fuck me," he says on a gasp when Will gets a hand into his pants, and Will doesn’t even pause.

"I will. Baby, I will, god, I can’t believe I get you. Here, let’s get this," and he lets go of his cock to shove off his coat, leaving it crumpling down his arms to strip off all the rest of his top layers and throw them on the floor.  

Will steps back to undress himself, and Chris ducks over to the bed to move his laptop out of the way before he finally toes off his shoes and shoves down his pants and underwear. When he’s done Will is still pulling off his socks, and Chris does exactly what he wants – he sinks to his knees to suck Will’s cock into his mouth.

Will’s hands are in his hair instantly, tight and grasping, and Chris takes him in when he’s still a little soft, lets him fill in his mouth. He thinks about it, now, thinks about what Will might have done if they’d both lost their minds this completely while they were still outside. He thinks about what it would be like to look down in the dark, to see Will’s hair shining under the dimmest lights, bobbing up and down on his dick, and he looks up at him; he wants to know if Will’s watching.

He is. His eyes are dark, and his mouth is hanging open. When their eyes lock he slowly fists his hair tighter in Chris’s hair and tugs a little, whispering “yeah, yeah, baby, like that. Love you, Chris,” and Chris closes his eyes and slurps at Will’s cock, lets Will fuck into his mouth and loves him, loves him, loves him with every thrust.

Will hisses and pulls back, taking a step away and gentling his hand, running it through Chris’s hair a few times and gazing down at him. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”

He sits back on his heels and looks up at him. The dim light from their room is catching on his wet cock and his wet mouth and his bright, messy hair and he looks just like the man who threatened to ravage him among the hedges. He wants to remember him like this forever. And then Will tilts his head and smiles, says “You okay?” and no, that one. That’s the one that’s really his.

Will pulls him up and kisses him, takes an arm in each hand and backs him toward the bed, one shuffling, cock-colliding step at a time until Chris feels the bed against his knees, and then he goes down, let’s himself fall back and watches Will come after him.

The kisses are sweet, long, hungry, and Will’s hands are all over him and then they’re turning him and sliding down his back and pulling him open.

“It’s been a long day,” he says.

"Shhh, I do not give a single solitary damn about that," and Will punctuates the words by spitting on his ass and scrubbing the broad side of his hand over it, grabbing a corner of the sheet to wipe it away and then licking broad and wet up his crack, moaning into it. “I’m gonna eat you out and get you so wet, spread you open for me, and then I’m gonna fuck you, put my dick in you and get you so messy."

He’s talked about it before, and every single time it’s left Chris feeling filthy in the best way, but tonight it’s going to happen and he arches his back into it, says, “Do it, fuck me," and Will groans against his ass, spearing his tongue into him quick and dirty, and he moans when he does. They both do.

He rides Will’s tongue and he begs for more. He begs; he wants his tongue, his hand, his cock. He wants to ride him, wants to grind into his lap, wants Will to tear him apart and make it feel good while he does. He has no idea what he’s doing, and the moment that thought occurs to him, he pushes it away. He’s doing Will.

He’s going to keep doing him. Will’s holding him open, thumbs digging into his asshole, stretching him and holding him open for his tongue so he can go deep, so he can press spit and moans into his body, and he can’t help riding his face. Will falls instantly into a rhythm, fucking at his hole, and he rides it, follows it, imagines everything else it could be and says again, “Will. Will, fuck me.”

“It’s coming, sweetheart,” he says, pulling back and wiping his mouth against the sheets. He grabs for the lube and condoms from the night table, and he’s quick, messy, when he goes back in with two fingers. “Let me heat you up first. Let me - yeah, there,” he says, pressing and brushing against Chris’s prostate, making him spasm. Oh, god, he wants him, but first -

“Forget the condom.”

Will pauses for a moment, freezes with two fingers inside of Chris, before he picks back up the rhythm. “Why?”

“I want you to come in me. I want to be wet with you.”

Will groans then, and Chris can feel his forehead hit the small of his back, the gust of breath and voice that comes out as “Jesu - fuck, Chris.” He presses a kiss there, hums against his skin. “Fuck, that would be so hot.”

He thinks about it. He wants to be messy, covered in Will, sticky with it. “Do it. Please.”

Will stays quiet, although he turns to rest his cheek against Chris’s back. He wishes he could see him. “Baby. Baby, I can’t. I want to -” he shuffles closer on his knees, wraps his free arm around Chris’s waist, pulls his fingers out to pat at his ass, so sweet - “but I can’t. Not until we talk about it first.”

He waits, and Will presses kisses against his back, and then he says, “Okay. But one day.”

Will smacks another kiss there, and moves to pick up a condom. “One day. When we get home we’re going to open a bottle of wine and talk about it, and then, when we’re ready, I’ll fuck you bare.” There’s noise, more wetness, and then blunt pressure. “But for right now, I’m fucking you here. Just like this.”

He tenses - it doesn’t matter how badly he wants this, how much he has begged and asked for it. It’s always been weird, and it’s still weird.

Will leans over his back and says, “Baby, try to relax. The head of my cock is inside of you, and you look so good stretched around me.”

He imagines it; he knows what it looks like, what that feels like, that heat and pressure, and he whines through it, and pushes out.

“That’s right, sweetheart. God you feel good.” Will’s hands are sweeping broad arcs across his back, down his flanks to press his cheeks together around his dick. “You’re so wet, so open for me. You want me to fuck you, don’t you?”

“I do.” He grunts, waits for it to pass, and feels himself relax a little bit more. “God, you feel big.”

“You know exactly how big I am,” he says. “Fifteen minutes ago I was in your mouth.” He’s sliding in, just a little at a time, tiny little hitches of his hips that feel like they’re pressing all the way into him. He shifts up a little bit, onto his elbows, trying to find the right angle. “One day I’ll do this bare, and I’ll be able to feel just how hot and wet you are. But god, you feel good just like this.”

And then Will gets quiet, and it’s just their panting breaths, and the thick, wet slide of him. He can feel Will fall back into rhythm, slow and easy this time, and he wants to move to it, so he does. He rocks himself back to meet him, and Will gasps out, “Chris, fuck,” and grabs his hips. “So fucking good, baby, you’re so perfect, just like that.”

And then, just then, it all falls together. He almost can’t believe it happened, but it did, and he doesn’t know why but from one breath to the next all he can do is melt into the bed and take it; his elbows fall out from under him and he can feel his face going slack against the pillow while he moans.

“Oh, fuck, Chris. Fuck.” He wants to grin, wants to say something smart, but Will pulls back and fucks into him in earnest and his body jolts when Will’s balls slap against his own and oh my god.

“That’s right, baby. Oh my god, you -” Will leans over him then, pressing his face against Chris’s shoulder, his breath gusting heavy up against his jaw. “You look so perfect when I fuck you, Chris.” He keeps moving, slow and easy, and he feels wet, open, stretched so full and even that feels good now, my god.

“I-” he says, and then he loses the thread to moan through it. Will stays close, plastered against his back, and whispers, “Fuck me. Take what you want.”

And he does. He rocks back against Will’s body, dropping his hips a little to make it easier, and fucks himself open on Will’s cock. Will wraps his arms around him, presses in under his chest to pull him close and keep him there and press him tight between Will’s body and the bed, and grabs Chris’s rhythm and keeps it going.

“Love you, baby. So proud of you, love you so much, you feel so-” and Will’s hips stutter then. “Going to keep you, take such good care of you.” Over and over, and it’s love and sex and absolutely brutal.

He never wants it to end. Each time his balls shake when Will’s meet his he feels it to his toes; each thrust into his ass he’s sure Will has never been deeper. Will is wrapped around him, breath in his ear, cock in his ass, arms holding him tight, and then one hand slips down to just cup his cock, loose and still a little slick, and oh my god, it’s too much, and he whines into it.

Too much, and so good and then Will fucks him into his hand and it happens instantly, one stroke to the next, he comes, his whole body shaking and his own voice crying out, hoarse and desperate, and Will can’t talk any more - he’s grunting, gasping, crying out “fuck, fuck”, and then he presses in hard, three more times, long and without rhythm, circling his hips to stretch it out, to keep it, keep it right there.

He’s all pins and needles, the good kind, and when Will falls a little heavier on his back it feels even better, like Will will hold him down and keep him from floating away. And Will is pressing kisses against the back of his neck, saying over and over “love you, love you, Chris, oh my god,” and huh. He just got fucked, really successfully.

He throws an elbow at Will, who nods against him and mumbles, “yeah, okay, hold on for this,” and then he’s pulling out, away, and flopping on his side next to him, behind him, opposite of how he’s facing. And he’s strangely glad for that, to have a moment to himself, and he keeps his eyes closed and lets himself float, just for a minute.

When he turns to face him, Will is looking at him, grinning tiny and smug, and Chris just says, “okay, I see your point,” and scoots a little closer.

The condom is cold and sticky against his leg, and when he looks down it’s just hanging there, full and drooping off of Will’s softening cock. “It’s always so sad, after it’s over,” he says, reaching down to finger at it.

Will says, “Mmm, it might look sad, but it’s actually very happy,” and Chris looks back up.

“Yeah.”

Will’s eyes are soft where they’re watching him, and he reaches over to lay one hand on his chest. Chris can’t let it rest there, takes Will’s hand and presses a kiss in the palm, and says, “Love you.”

And one more time, there’s that smile.

—-

When he wakes, Will is there, his head resting against his chest and tracing slow and sweet over his side. He breathes deep, he stretches, jostling against him, and Will looks up, his eyes bright. Before he can even say anything, Will crawls closer and ducks, nibbling against his sacred spot, and Chris just turns his eyes upward as a grin washes over his face.

“Dare I even ask what you’re looking for this time?” Chris muses, trailing a finger up Will’s arm as he continues to wake further.

“Mmmmm,” Will hums against his neck, and he pulls back, grinning wildly at him. “Nothing in particular. I thought I’d try and find that exclusive top who took me home from a Halloween party a few months back, but he seems to be missing in action. Remember that guy? I wonder what happened to him?”

Chris pulls the skin of Will’s forearm between his forefinger and thumb taut, tempted to pinch, but instead smiles sweetly and says, “I think he ran off with that guy who wasn’t ready for a relationship. Haven’t seen him in a while either.”

That makes Will laugh, loud and clear against his neck as his head drops again, and Chris is still grinning towards the ceiling. It’s getting later, and they have a flight soon, but Chris isn’t ready to let go of this all quite yet. Neither can Will apparently, who picks up his hand and laces their fingers together as they rest on Chris’s chest. “Everything good?” Will asks, lips brushing over fingertips, and Chris shivers.

He hums and nods in response. “The plane ride back is going to suck, being stuck in a seat for so many hours. Very poor planning on our part.”

Will waits a beat and then takes his hand back and stretches, long and lean. Chris just watches because he can. “That is going to be horrible, especially on your end, but I’m ready to go home, aren’t you?”

Chris thinks back to how often Will inhabited his space before they left, made his space his own, and remembers how comfortable it felt. He wonders how long it will be before Will stops going to his own place all together, and he grins at the thought. The trip was wonderful and perfect and just what they needed, but so much is waiting for them in California, more than he can even wrap his mind around right now.

He looks over and meets Will’s eye and matches his smile. Yeah, he’s ready to go home.


End file.
